Does attending a title 1 school (school where a high percentage of kids are on free or reduced price lunch and breakfast) do anything for a college application?
Simply attending? No. But colleges will know the relative offerings in your school and you’ll be judged in that context. For instance, let’s say your HS graduates 20% of ninth graders with only 4% going on to graduate and enroll in a 4-yr college and the avg ACT is 17. If you’re one who, in that context, gets a 32 ACT or equivalent – that’s quite an achievement.
so succeeding at a school like that is more impressive than succeeding at a school where the average ACT score is in the high 20s or low 30s?
Also, YOUR situation is also examined. In other posts you mention your ECs and ability to be full pay. Thus your parents jobs & education level (and your relative difference than your peers) will be taken in context as well. *Just b/c you attend an under-resourced HS doesn’t automatically confer any advantage to you if you’re not from that background.
I’m not sure it’s that uncommon in many parts of country. I would say most schools in our city fit the criteria. My Ds went to title one schools all the way through. In middle school and HS the title one schools they attended also housed the best academic magnets. I think the biggest thing is the relative offerings, as in if the school doesn’t offer AP classes, you won’t be penalized for not taking them but you can have a rigorous education at a Title 1 school.
If you attend a Title I school, your academic achievements will be taken in that context, and a 27 in a school where the average is 17 is as good as a 34 in a school where the average is 27. But if your family can afford to be full pay, colleges will wonder about the disconnect (ie., are you one of these kids whose family lost everything in the 2008 financial crisis but who held onto the kid’s college fund?)
To illustrate the dilemma universities confront: (1) they will view that 27 ACT score with favor, when the secondary school’s average SAT result is a 17, but (2) they also have to be reasonably certain the applicant can succeed in an academically fast-past (and sometimes highly competitive) undergraduate environment. That’s why things like recommendations are quite important.
^many top-flight universities offer a 6 or 7-week intensive program in the summer for kids who come from lower performing schools and have shown they have the intelligence to succeed academically but whom the universities know didn’t receive the necessary rigor of curriculum.
@MYOS1634 (re post #7): Yes, and that’s great for these students, but: (a) not all colleges and universities do so and (b) I have never been convinced that two intensive months can remotely substitute for years, not only in the classroom but in the broader world of learning. To be clear, I want these kids in our best universities – for their benefit, and the institution’s, and their classmates,’ and their instructors,’ and our nation’s – but I understand the dilemma faced by admissions personnel.
The programs mostly “bridge” the cultural divide and make sure students know where to find help and don’t hesitate to ask for it. The programs heavily involve reading/writing and provide the type of information kids whose parents have been to college (or speak English natively) would take for granted. The adjustement tends to be tough in any case, but kids with high GPAs from low performing schools do better if they attend the most selective schools than if they attend the less selective ones, and much better than in community college, due to a combination of greater resources + different cultural expectations.
But, yes, it’s tough to discern. A key criterion would be “who will tough it out? who will give up because it’s so destabilizing?”
@MYOS1634: Thank you, this was valuable to me. Life is a L O N G marathon and these great kids – with every bit as much potential as their upper middle-class peers – need to be nurtured. We truly need them, in my opinion.