Has a strongly determined and motivated student, who happens to come from a horrendous low-quality “public” high school (such as the lowest tier of state/national/etc. high schools), ever been accepted into a decent, prestigious school? (I’m not setting a precendent of what “prestigious” is)
<p>yes it has</p>
<p>i think if you have done the best with what is offered to you at your school (if they only have honors but not AP, you’d have taken all the honors classes, or…if they only had two levels of college prep you always took the higher level) you will have a pretty good shot at the better schools. i don’t think colleges are going to reject you for not taking classes or doing things your school didnt even offer. i dont know if you mean ivies, because in that case, i have no idea and i cant help you lol but if you just mean good solid state or private schools i would say you have a shot.</p>
<p>that type of student probly has a better chance than a middle of the pack elite private schooler.</p>
<p>Yes. The secret is to make opportunities for yourself by establishing strong relationships with the best teachers in your school and following their guidance to go above and beyond what’s required in your classes.</p>
<p>Look, too, for special programs that are offered for bright disadvantaged students. These include scholarships to prep schools and scholarships to college summer programs.</p>
<p>In addition, do your best to get to know professors in colleges and to establish e-mail or personal relationships with them. You can do this by contacting them about academic areas that you are interested in including research papers.</p>
<p>Use on-line sources and books to study for the SAT and ACT. Do not settle for simply being the best in your school. Set your sights on getting scores as high as possible. Use tips that you can find on sites like CC.</p>
<p>Read books such as “A Hope in the Unseen” (about a low-income boy from a single parent home and a horrendous high school who through a lot of hard work and determination graduated from Brown University, an Ivy) or “Gifted Hands,” the story of Dr. Ben Carson, one of the world’s top neurosurgeons whose impoverished single mom was illiterate and a cleaning lady. He went to an inner city school in Detroit and got his undergraduate degree from Yale, his medical degree from University of Michigan.</p>
<p>Well…my public high school is pretty bad. I don’t know about horrendous, you can learn as much as you want. Most people just don’t want to learn anything, so we are always “almost” going on academic probation and the state occasionally threatens to take over. I was accepted at Amherst, Wesleyan, Bowdoin, Reed, Oberlin, Swarthmore, Colgate. I wouldn’t say my school is the worst in the state, but it would be ranked pretty low, for sure. We have a HUGE dropout rate, avg ACT is around 16-18, and less than half of students even take it. Most kids don’t want to apply to “prestigous” schools from here. I think if you want to, as long as you took full advantage of the opportunities available, that’s all that matters.</p>
<p>sure, you have a chance. admissions shouldn’t penalize you for not taking AP courses, etc., if your school doesn’t even offer them.</p>
<p>yea a friend of mine got into cornell </p>
<p>SAT score of 1400 - first 1350 + score in school history</p>
<p>students from low income high poverty high schools have an advantage over a rich suburban student who attends an top private school any day of the week.</p>
<p>This is the reasoning, because if you come from one of these prestigious suburban school district, universities expect you to have good stats. Schools dont have any expectations for low income, high poverty schools. Plus, they want their university to be diversified so if you even get respectable stats your in.</p>
<p>If i had to equate
Bad Schools === Good schools
1000 SAT = 1400 SATS in one of the best HS
3.0 GPA = 3.8-4.00 GPA</p>
<p>Just remember this the national SAT national average is 1026, the average SAT in Philadelphia is 750, that 1000 all of sudden looks real good with 700,800’s accompanying it…</p>