how do you know how good your high school is?

Pre-College Topics High School Cafe
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<p>The Newsweek list methodology is very controversial. I wouldn’t put too much credence in it (unless, of course, your school is among the top…) My sense is that the reputation of high schools–with the exception of magnets and many privates–is known mostly among the colleges that most students apply to/get accepted to. Over time admissions officers get to know how successful students from specific high schools are. But that doesn’t mean that it would hurt a good candidate from a weaker school–in fact, there is some evidence that a high-performing student within a weaker school might have an advantage in some cases. And yes, the strong music program could help–especially for the students involved in it!</p>

22

<p>I think mine’s good because we have over a dozen people going to Cornell each year, and maybe 25-30 going to ivies total.</p>

23

<p>Just wanted to add something funny. I just googled “Texas high school rankings.” You guessed it…the first page was pretty much all football rankings.</p>

24

<p>As someone said, you can tell by what schools your grads to go.</p>

<p>My school, for instance:
80 person class (last year’s graduates)
3 Upenn
2 Princeton
6 Cornell
2 Harvard
3 Yale
1 Columbia
7 Vanderbilt
3 Johns Hopkins
like 5 of these were athletic recruits</p>

<p>I’m glad I go to my school.</p>

25

<p>Our school last year:</p>

<p>Graduating class: roughly 160</p>

<h1>of students accepted into ivy league:73 (46%)</h1>

<p>Brown: 5
Columbia: 7
Cornell: 27
Dartmouth: 9
Harvard: 8
Princeton: 7
UPenn: 5
Yale: 5</p>

<p>and for our year, (200-2008), about 50% of our grade has scored 2150 or above on the SAT I</p>

26

<p><a href=“http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12532678/site/newsweek/[/url]”>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12532678/site/newsweek/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>If it’s ranked somewhere there, it’s probably pretty good. Even better if it’s in the top 500, 100, 50, so on.</p>

<p>^ that site is soooooo unreliable. esp after seeing Jericho HIgh School in the top 100. that school is really bad. even known all around NY, many know of its thug-reputation and drop outs. tsk tsk tsk.</p>

27

<p>And as for Sophie Davis, JOhns Hopkins, Vanderbilt, Williams, Amherst, Tufts, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Duke…and the MANY of the other top 50 colleges in the nation, our school sends students there by the handfl each year. no kiddin</p>

28

<p>Hey funployee …I have ? do you by any chance go to STCE? its ranked 71st in state…so just wondering. I go there.</p>

29

<p>again, at my school you have to be in the top 15 kids out of 665 really to have a chance at applying to the ivies.</p>

<p>Our school district was recently named the “Best Fine Arts program in the U.S.”</p>

<p>Does that make us more competitive?</p>

30

<p>my state ranks HS’s by state testing scores-- i guess 8/300+ ain’t half bad.</p>

<p>i don’t understand how the newsweek ranking policy makes sense. if you’re comparing two schools- one where the APs are a “joke” so a lot of people take them, and another where APs are actually rigorous classes so fewer people take them…the first school would be ranked higher, wouldn’t it?</p>

31

<p>^true </p>

<p>the main flaw is that it doesn’t take into account the passing rate of the AP tests that are taken…</p>

32

<p>The passing rate of APs at my school is 0 passed / 0 taken, so that’s another reason I know it’s not competitive. Last year’s val and sal went to Huntington University and Goshen College, respectively.</p>

33

<p>the links show rankings for only PUBLIC schools; i go to a private school</p>

34

<p><a href=“http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18757087/site/newsweek/[/url]”>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18757087/site/newsweek/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Here you go, but they factor in lots of things like improvement and not just grades/scores. Economic status also factors in.</p>

35

<p>Wow, my state(Louisiana) has exactly 1 school on the entire Newsweek list.</p>

36

<p>My HS is second in the state (MN). So, it’s competitive.</p>

37

<p>My high school is weird. We collaborate with all the other high schools in the county to provide all the students in the county with 33 AP classes (I believe every AP is offered except Latin). So it’s almost like one huge school, but we’re ranked in comparison just to the kids at our neighborhood school. My school is new (class of 2007 was the first graduating class), last year, as far as top schools we sent about 6 to UNC, 1 to Wake out of 160…1 was accepted to Brown, but turned it down. Systemwide, we send 20-30 kids to ivies/elite schools out of maybe 3000?</p>