My understanding is that some schools do this and/or have done this. I don’t know specifics, or if schools do this as a general course of business, or undertake periodic studies.
As we know many schools are tracking college GPAs of TO vs test submitters, so it would be easy to grab the HS level rigor data too.
It’s easy data to harvest, I guess. I just thought there might be some privacy issues ?
I’m not sure about privacy issues…definitely not in my wheelhouse!
Not individually student but has an institution.
Historical performance data are available and with advancement’s in data science I can’t see how it isn’t used as part of the equation.
I have had professors who openly offer students from certain LA area HS grads to get extra tutoring session because they assumed they came in at a disadvantage.
Edit to say they just assumed. They actually do not know individual kids’ records.
As a side note, we have parents here cry foul that their kids go to top schools in CA and get denied admission. My kids go to a HS that is ranked bottom tier (something like 600 or lower). But at least for CA Public, admission criteria has changed enough that HS rigor is not as important as it was 20 to 30 years ago when we applied. Personally I would not harp on HS rigor.
I am not sure if your kids are a typical case for low rigor high school applicants, since your kids made sure to include additional things in their overall admission portfolios that would show rigor.
In isolation I would agree, but 7 kids from his HS got into UCLA and 5 into UCB this year and with double digits into I and SD. They only have 160 kids in class. Top admit was into Columbia. Usually one gets into Stanford every year.
AFAIK, none of them did what we did. I would assume this “Holistic” review process is taking away HS rigor and looking at the everything else.
I am sure that anything known about HS rigor is taken into consideration.
AND at the same time there is also an effort, I think, to admit students from a wide variety of locations and high schools.
Both can be true. Just because students are being admitted from your high school doesn’t mean that colleges aren’t taking rigor into consideration.
I’m not discounting HS rigor. And I agree they must be considering HS rigor.
I’m just pointing out there are other factors being considered and deserves equal attention.
My wife semi jokes that s24 did all this to get into UCB while his best friend did zero beyond what he did in HS and will be attending UCB.
Kids with different levels of preparation do get into UCB. That doesn’t mean they will all have the same experience once they get there and start taking classes… but if they have great study habits, kids with less preparation can catch up. Crossing my fingers for both your S and his best friend to have a great experience 
Agree.
Getting in is NOT the same as getting thru. One step at a time. Best friend is just lucky UCs do not have the same reputation for flunking people out as they did 40 years ago. At least his is not STEM. I still remember the “look to the left and look to the right” speech at Freshman orientation.
Some schools definitely do this, and also colleges can use naviance or scoir , or their own system, to see what kids they accepted from certain high schools, and who matriculated.
UCs were far less selective 40 years ago (most of them probably admitted close to baseline UC eligibility which was then a sliding scale of 2.8 HS GPA with 1600 SAT score to 3.3 GPA with 400 SAT score, similar to today’s 3.0 HS GPA without use of SAT or ACT). So no real surprise that UCs then were closer to the model of “give lots of students a chance, even though not all of them will complete” (like the community colleges and most of the CSUs still are), compared to today’s state of high admission selectivity due to capacity limits where those get admitted have a very high chance of completion because they are academically much stronger than many of those 40 years ago.
Also, advances in technology mean that a similarly rigorous college course is likely to be less difficult and time consuming than it was 40 years ago, although some courses may have increased rigor and/or content in response.
can always state the parents had to move jobs or whatnot… i dunno, stranger “games” have been played, I’m sure
My son goes to a rigorous school with 34 seniors. It’s clear from Naviance data that certain colleges get this school. Others like WashU and Rice take fewer kids than expected.
There’s only so much time colleges can spend analyzing each high school. Mistakes are made. He did try and explain schools method a bit in the Common App section on circumstances. Is ok.
Here in New York State, it’s a simple fact that private school instructors are not subject to the same requirements as public school teachers in terms of certification, degree holding (including the requirement to obtain a master’s degree within 5 years of certification) and other less important miscellaneous training requirements.
To move from the general to the specific, two graduates of my undergrad institution taught briefly at the Dalton School and Horace Mann respectively, soon after college and with no further experience in education. Notably, Jeffrey Epstein taught at the Dalton School despite having no undergraduate degree at all. Friends of ours have been teaching at Horace Mann, now as the head of a department, for 5 years with a bachelor’s degree and no degree in education.
So, as to OP’s original statement about SOME private school teachers, there is really some question as to qualifications either in the subjects they are teaching or as to their educational or teaching credentials or experience or both. Not a “spurious” claim.
There is a strong anti-AP bias on CC, and please don’t even mention self-studying for AP’s, because many will suggest that colleges would rather students scoop ice cream or make lattes than take extra AP classes. Forget that colleges have specifically pointed to out-of-school self-study resources like Khan academy as free and open to all. Definitely don’t look at AP material on Khan because that will just demonstrate that you are a boring academic drone, and colleges hate people who love to study - anything extra.
As to private vs. public, there is really no ground for comparison as each subset has such variance. Some privates are mostly groups of behavioral other challenging students of wealthy parents. Elite privates have a large contingent of scholarship kids who are exceptional in some way (hardship, academics, athletics), and they’ll do very well at the next step as well. Legacy only gets you so far, but at elite privates, billionare legacies do carry some weight. Basically, if you’re one of those people who are going to pay full freight, being a legacy gets you to the front of the line with your credit card so you can subsidize other students. An interesting study of the Ivies showed that applying for financial aid virtually nullified legacy preference. Says a lot.
Do you have a link to that study??
I am not sure about public schools but most of the private schools I know in TX don’t rank,
Including the schools my kids attend.
To comply with the guaranteed admissions reaquirement our schools notify students who are in the top 10 percent IF they apply to a state school. They also notify top 6 percent of they apply to UT. Other than that, they don’t report rank.
Are you doubtful that this is true? Just want to know if you spent any time looking this up before asking me to spend time locating the article. I’m happy to contribute to CC, but please clarify your request for my time.