<p>10% of families are from, ehem, cough, that part of the world, including ours (half from there).</p>
<p>The school is too competitive for its own good. Even a 3.5 UW is a major achievement, let alone anything higher. Getting a position in varsity sports is as easy as getting drafted in the NBA. There is an incredible amount of tutoring going on by school faculty and others (at $40+ an hour) to help improve grades. Lots of study groups for those that are, well, using above grading scale and similar. Spots like a seat in the newspaper staff are very difficult also.</p>
<p>Contrast this with the semi-rural school some of my coworkers sent their kids. Not even 50% college bound, a handful of AP’s, and anyone with a pulse and some studying can waltz off with a 4.0 UW. The local highly ranked parochial is no different. Yet said parochial and said easier semi-rural HS have sent more kids to the Ivies than our HS proportionally…</p>
<p>It could also be lower financials making such students more ‘admit-able’. Never mind our HS has science facilities that put many LAC’s to shame, nearly every teacher has an MS (and a few have PhD’s), our technology classes are top, etc etc. But most of our kids won’t come remotely close to those 3.999 UW, 4.999 W GPA’s.</p>