The problem with too many kids applying from the same high school is more of an issue for smaller schools that are trying to improve their geographic demographics. If the local high school produces 25 kids who apply and who are all well qualified - you don’t want to accept all 25, and may even err on the side of accepting fewer than you would otherwise, because you don’t want to be seen as a college only for local kids. This situation is very different and I can’t see it mattering that 2 kids from the same class apply. They will be weighted on their own merits.
@doschicos Yes, I am definitely doing my venting here! 
I make sure not to share my stress with her, as she has enough of her own. The process of visiting colleges and wondering where she will wind up has been a fun and exciting journey, and that’s how I want it to stay!
@Massmomm Yes, fortunately, she has two other schools she is very excited about, one of which is equal to Vassar in how much she likes it, actually…but Vassar got the edge due to one or two small factors. And then there are two more schools which, although they are not at the top of her list and might feel like a tiny letdown, she liked very much upon visiting and I’m sure she will wind up loving them if she goes to either.
@wisteria100 I agree, ED does not make up for stats that do not fit the school’s profile. Overall, my D fits fairly well, but of course it is hard to know how they evaluate each applicant and build their class. I would never want her to “waste” an ED app on a school where she had little to no chance of getting in.
Interesting to read what folks are saying about Naviance. I don’t really know how anyone can identify a certain student from Naviance, as I’ve never seen anything like that and I don’t see how that would be a good idea!
How potentially could,you identify a student by viewing Naviance? Well…like I said…my kid is the ONLY student from her school who applied to and got acceoted to her college. IF her school had this stat available on Naviance, it would be VERY easy to know that it was my kid.
My Naviance is definitely not broken down by applications/acceptances per year the way @Data10 described. There is a total application history chart and scattergrams, but I think they encompass all years (at least since they’ve been tracking it).
But in the case of my kid, for sample…you wouldn’t even need the breakdown by year…because she is a sample of one.
Well, hopefully the school isn’t showing data in Naviance from too far back because then it becomes meaningless due to the rapidly changing (more competitive) admissions landscape. My kids’ school uses 3 years and even over that period things have changed dramatically for some schools.
So I actually found the information by year when I went digging. And none of the schools on D’s list have any application history even though I know there are kids from
last year who applied and got in to at least three of them! But I will say that it looks like, as a whole, students from our high school do seem to be accepted into many good schools in fairly large numbers, meaning a good percentage - 20 applied, 14 got in, that sort of thing. Not the Ivies of course!
It is possible those kids and their acceptances are not on Naviance because the sample number is too small. This is wht we were all saying. If a small number of students only have applied someplace, often schools will not make that data available because it would be possible to identify the specific students.
Based on both what I saw many years ago when I was applying and what I’ve seen, you know, in this century, I’m going to add to the chorus of people telling you not to worry about this. I live in Westchester and for reasons too boring to go into, a few years ago, I was looking at the school acceptance lists (some times they show up on school profiles, which are often on school websites) for a number of the top westchester districts. Multiple acceptances to elite schools were pretty common.
I would bet that adcoms do hit a point where they feel like they have to limit the number of kids they take from a particular school, but I don’t think it’s at two or three kids. I suspect it’s more like Columbia saying that they just can’t take half of Stuyvesant’s graduating class, even if they’re all great candidates or that, regardless of Boston Latin’s long, long history as a feeder school for Harvard, the entire senior class cannot move en masse from Boston Latin to Harvard. Two students from a high school? I’d be surprised if Vassar thought twice about it.
Agreed.
Incidentally, when I graduated from Stuy in the mid-'90s, Columbia U’s College accepted around 1/7th(~90-100) of my graduating class while Cornell (A & S and Engineering) accepted a bit more than 1/6th of my class(~120). Granted, this was a period when Columbia was far less popular partially due to its urban location/NYC’s higher crime issues and much lower USNWR ranking than in recent years.
It can happen with smaller pools at smaller high schools, too. It’s not just whether 2-3 or 20+ apply from your one hs. It’s the pool in your local community.
@millie210 @cobrat Funny you should mention Stuyvesant, because I graduated from there too, in 1987. I remember hearing that over 50 students from my graduating class attended Cornell. I’m sure many more than that were accepted. This is one of the things I remembered after my initial (silly) gut reaction to this situation! I realize that my daughter’s friend’s application will really have no impact on her acceptance/deferral/rejection any more than any other of the hundreds of early decision applicants from our region or elsewhere. Now we will just keep out hopes up that they both get in! She would be so happy to have a familiar face around as she adjusts to the college environment, and heck, at Vassar, they could even wind up sharing a bathroom!
My kids’ high school also blocks data on Naviance when too few students apply. My daughter applied to several colleges no other students applied to. It would have been very obvious that the scattergram is her. Navaince is only useful in our district when a lot of kids apply. And @millie210 , same! This year Brown accepted two of our students, and Columbia did also. Cornell accepts several of our students each year. Almost the only Ivy that never takes kids from our district is Yale. I think they have admitted one person in the last ten years.
Yes, Cornell has accepted a number of students from our school in recent years, too, as many as 7 out of 13 applicants (our HS is pretty small, graduating class this year is only 150), while Brown has accepted none and Yale a few. I remember in my high school, it was common knowledge that “Princeton doesn’t like Stuyvesant.” Who knows if that was true.
@IBviolamom
Has your D considered adding some selective test optional schools to her list? Bates, Bowdwoin, Conn college?
I ask, because her grades and rigor seem very strong, but there is a disparity with her SAT. Some schools may look at that as a red flag, but of course at test optional places, they won’t see that.
@wisteria100 Thanks for the suggestions! She is fairly biased against New England LACs, I must admit, as she wants a change after spending four years of high school on the east coast. That’s why other than Vassar, she is mostly interested in schools in the Midwest. She likes the vibe there! Vassar had its own vibe that was not, of course, anything like the Midwest schools, but still felt like a good fit. We already visited Conn Coll and decided not to apply. Bates and Bowdoin were in her initial explorations, though, and I remember her lining what she learned online. We will take another look!
This common knowledge was confirmed by several HS teachers and a few GCs when I attended during the early-mid '90s.
The common knowledge which was confirmed by other CC posters in previous threads was that Princeton up until the late '90s had a strong preference for elite/private boarding school graduates…especially athletes and legacy/developmental applicants. Not us public school/public magnet HS “riffraff”:.
There was a strong perception among Stuy alums who graduated in the mid-late '90s and earlier of Princeton being a snobby “country club” which mainly admitted students who are private/boarding school graduates…especially athletes/legacy/developmental admits with very few exceptions.
And the numbers of admits from my graduating class seem to bear that out. While Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Yale, CMU, and Caltech accepted at least 15-30 students each from my graduating class, Princeton accepted 5. The only HYPSMCC school which accepted less than 15 students. Also, most of the accepted students were very well-off and had a legacy or developmental hook.
However, heard from CC posters and Stuy teachers/admins/alum association board members that this has changed and Princeton reformed their admissions in the late '90s so as the reforming senior adcom said “To admit more students from schools like Stuyvesant”. And from what I’ve been hearing from Stuy alum board members and HS teachers I had who are still there, Princeton is now accepting more students than was the case when I attended.
@cobrat I was definitely riffraff. ;). I even (gasp!) went to a SUNY. Seriously, though, it’s really terrible that any college or university would have some kind of preference like that, for any reason other than “we have found that students from School X are engaged, enthusiastic, and intelligent learners who greatly enhance the academic atmosphere at our institution.” Maybe that would be a reason to be a tiny bit biased towards a certain HS. But even that seems an unfair way to judge an individual.
It’s a lot different that 20 years ago, beginning with the crazy growth in numbers of apps and more sophistication in candidates. Some schools like Stuy and TJ just have so many good kids that different colleges need to make a decision what to do with them, how to spread the admits fairly among various hs in a community or area. Even at lesser high schools, there are still great kids with solid potential.
Heh, same here.
In fact, this perception of me as riffraff extended to many of the Stuy teachers/admins when I attended. According to a few former teachers I had who are still there/retired within the last couple of years, some including a former principal who was a teacher/VP in our time there were still trying to figure out how I managed to gain admission to Stuy in the first place.
Also, depending on the SUNY, attending one doesn’t necessarily mean one’s riffraff even within Stuy. Knew dozens of HS classmates who were accepted to/attended colleges like Middlebury, Columbia SEAS, NYU-Stern/Tisch, Vassar(Mainly Males) etc who were flat out rejected by some SUNYs like Binghamton because they failed to meet their minimum cumulative GPA cutoff of 90/100.