Just know a lot of kids from different backgrounds. I know many kids from private or charter schools that have struggled in a large public school environment. I know many who have been very successful as well. College is a mix of academic and cultural fit. Of course most kids from private schools or charter schools go to private colleges as well. Obviously if we are talking about a really elite private school that’s another matter.
A strong performing kid from a top large public school tends to do well at a top large public college because the academics and the culture are similar. Always exceptions to that too of course but that’s been my experience.
The larger issue is with kids from underperforming schools or small schools because the academics and the culture are such a shift.
Many schools are getting away from sharing any contextual GPA data…many schools don’t have GPA decile or even a median on the school profile, I would say most don’t at this point. Some give six semester data for the current class, but plenty show eight semester data in whatever form (decile, mid 50%, median) for the previous years’ class with no context for the current class.
With such a high proportion of students having all A’s, having this info doesn’t really matter, as the differences in rigor between students is obvious and AOs will assess that as they will.
Some counselors and teachers do rate each student on their rec forms, but that’s more holistic/subjective than GPA ranges of course.
totally agree w/ the holistic admissions process I do believe GT does stick to this; basically you just need stats in line w/ the top performing students from your high school to get past the initial review and into holistic admissions. Our rep essentially said as much… the SAT score, rigor and gpa are important as far as a first metric to pass (like you said in context of your school but also must be in competitive range so you can actually succeed at tech), but after that they basically just look at you as a whole; your essay, your ‘why I want to study at tech’ is super important; your ECs (less so), after that your major and how many students they can actually admit to fill out the class etc. They could fill the freshman class w/ only kids from metro ATL high schools though; this is why I say its a bit harder in a bigger pool of applicants as they don’t want 75% of the freshman to all be from Cobb, Fulton and Gwinnett county. Even if they could fill the class w/ qualified applicants from those (which they could).
Our public metro school, something like 45-50 students are admitted each year. it is a very competitive school and students have a pretty good idea of who will be admitted in advance. Not too many surprises.
It’s ridiculous that a kid who is a strong student from a large public high school with a similar culture and rigorous academics is going to be more likely to succeed than someone from a private high school with similar academics but a very different culture? Or that someone from a lower performing high school with also a very different culture will be as successful?
Of course there are many exceptions to the rule, my wife is one of them. Maybe the elite large (2500 plus students with Top 200 Niche ratings) public schools are different in Georgia than Texas as well.
Completely agree with you. The key for success at Georgia Tech is good time management.
If you come from an environment where you have rigorous classes with several hours of homework a night along with after school activities and sports, etc. you enter with these sorts of skills. If you took a rigorous course load in high school, but never really had a lot of homework, didn’t ever really learn how to study, didn’t have to take AP tests to evaluate your performance, are allowed to turn in assignments late without penalty, etc. and have had no reason to develop time management skills, that could be an issue
The kids without time management skills at Georgia Tech are the ones that struggle. Makes no difference whether they came from a public or private school.
Actually it is even harder from smaller schools or magnets. They as you mentioned do not want many kids from the same school. If school has many top students- they are out of luck. Very top will be accepted and the rest deferred and rejected.
In general gross generalizations are not helpful to anyone. I’ve seen kids succeed at every level but I would certainly not say public school kids here are better set up for success when our public school policies are the complete opposite from what college expectations would be (no midterms, no finals, assignments will be accepted late, retakes etc).
I’ve seen high stats kids in high school flounder in college and above average kids shine. The truth is anyone can do well and anyone can do poorly.
There is no need to make generalizations about any type of school.
is that true for typical public high school in Georgia. ??? a bit surprised, NY high school has mid term, final ( and regent on top of it) , and my kids class never allow retake (sometime allow correction for 1/4 credits) and late assignment will be half credit. sounds lik high schools expectation are very different area to area