I hear all the time about how there are certain feeder schools to the Ivy League. But since colleges want students from all ranges of the nation, it seems like this would be a disadvantage compared to coming from a high school where not many kids apply to an ivy league school. Is this right?
In my case, I live in a suburban upper-class neighborhood and attend a fairly good suburban high school with around 40 kids in a class of 700 applying to the ivy league each year.
I’d say around 15 of them end up getting accepted to a T20 each year. As for HYPS, I’d say it’s only 1-3 that go each year, which is much lower than the number that applies to HYPS.
From your threads you seem very anxious that some facet of your profile is going to weigh against you and will be what keeps you from getting in to the university that you/your family thinks is essential:
= The AO is going to google your house- and find out something that makes them reject you.
= Your ACT college report might indicate that your score is not a good fit for your proposed major- and the college might reject you.
= Your choice of major or language that you study will seem off, and the college might reject you.
= The financial aid office might share something with admissions- and the college might reject you.
= You go to an over-represented high school which might be a disadvantage- so the college might reject you.
From the snippets in your posts, you have high grades, are Korean raised but in the US for the last 2 years of high school (possibly even to improve your chances at top US colleges?), and working with a private admissions counselor. The pressure on you to get into one of a handful of colleges in the US must be enormous. I’m sorry.
There are so many ways to parse who is at an advantage/disadvantage, but at the end of the day this is what matters (from the MIT admissions blog):
Btw, if I were your parent, and paying that private admissions counselor, I would have some serious questions about what she is doing- from these bits it looks as though she is increasing your anxiety, which is counter-productive. Fear and anxiety use up energy that should be going into your activities (whatever you are doing with your summer / sketching out draft essays), not researching possible ways that it could all end badly.
Yes, you will be evaluated in the context of the other applicants from your school / region. I went to schools like that, and so did my collegekids. And it was pretty clear to all of us, both way back in the day and these days, which kids were most likely to end up at each level of college. But in the end, you have to run your own race.