<p>We live in probably the best school district in our state, with a huge high school that has a sizable number of students whose parents use the alternate grading scale (A: Acceptable, B: Bad C: Catastrophic D: Disowned etc) :). Graduating class of a thousand plus, it’s easier to win Powerball than to get Valedictorian or what not. Full complement of AP and IB.</p>
<p>You see some pretty incredible GPA’s and SAT’s - yet only about 10 kids a year go to a top school (Ivies or top20 type). Maybe 15 in a good year. About 500-600 go to the state flagship, another 100-150 in the directionals, OOS, etc. We’re not seeing a flood of A+++ students to top schools. Plus the school is most definitely not the kind where you waltz into A’s. My younger one has an unweighted 3.8 or 3.85, weighted well over 4, but studies till 11:30 PM every night.</p>
<p>Colleges seem to know about us. We’re ranked in the top 0.5% if you believe the list of HS… But to be honest, if you want to go to a top school I’d think to go to an easier school, be it college prep or parochial or semi-rural. A few of my friends’ kids did that and ended up in the Ivies or with full rides in flagships.</p>
<p>No good way around it. The better public schools, especially large ones, attract top students, and with competition being as cutthroat as it gets, individual achievements are hard to showcase…</p>
<p>I guess everyone has different experience and it is good to speak out and compare.</p>
<p>For some reason, I have a different experience from turbo93. SF Bay Area has about 10 magnet public schools, my nephew went to one and it is truly cutthroat and highly competitive. It is probably the highest ranking and the most difficult HS in entire East Bay. My nephew had mediocre grade throughout the HS career and he openly state that he would not want to apply for an Ivy to repeat his HS experiences. Nevertheless, he was admitted to UCLA. MY DD with much higher stats and 34 on ACT, on the other hand was rejected by UCLA, she went to a lessor competitive HS but it is still one of the best in the county we live. Both of them are in the same class year.</p>
<p>*Among equally qualified apps, I’d expect the highly selective colleges…to favor the lower income student over the higher income because it’s more of a noteworthy feat to achieve at stellar level while overcoming difficult circumstances than to achieve when your life and school are full of opportunities, SAT tutors, etc. * </p>
<p>“Achieve at a stellar level” is much more than being a top dog in a lesser hs context- more than hs grades and scores and some titles. </p>
<p>Again, applies: it’s not all about stats. But nor is it as simple as projecting the influence of “lower income.”</p>
<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>
<p>It may also depend on what “mediocre HS” actually means.</p>
<p>Suppose two high schools have similar not very good rankings in terms of test scores, students going to college, etc. But:</p>
<ul>
<li>School A offers courses so that a college bound student who takes them will be well prepared for college, without needing remedial courses. If AP courses are offered, students who do well in them do well in the AP tests, and are well prepared for subsequent courses in college.</li>
<li>School B offers courses that are low quality so that a student who does well in the most rigorous and advanced courses is still likely to need remedial courses in college. If AP courses are offered, students taking them typically score 1 on the AP test.</li>
</ul>
<p>If School A is the “mediocre HS”, the advantage of going to an elite HS is much less than if School B is the “mediocre HS”. Indeed, a good, but not great, student may find an elite HS to be too competitive relative to School A, and may not be academically able to take more rigorous and advanced courses than s/he would have taken at School A. On the other hand, attending School B is generally undesirable for any college-bound student.</p>
<p>There can also be non-academic issues at some “mediocre HSs” but not others. E.g. the presence of criminal gangs.</p>
<p>Just to comment on what you said, it appears that School A which you labeled the “mediocre HS” is actually an elite HS if they offer the same curriculum as the elite one. </p>
<p>But I guess you’re saying that it would be labeled “mediocre” because the overall student body does poorly on the SATs, sending kids to college, etc. In reality, it would be a pretty darn good school because it offers all the same opportunities that you would see at the elite school.</p>
<p>As long as a child can take advantage of those opportunities and really shine, then they have as good of a chance of getting into HYPS. (Of course, I know that getting in is much more than just grades and test scores.)</p>
<p>Actually, nobody really has a “good” chance of getting into HYPS. You are right to be thinking long term, just realize that HYPS is not the holy grail. If fact, they don’t offer merit scholarships, so families that don’t qualify for need-based aid (ie most famlies) find them unaffordable.</p>
At the highly selective colleges we have been discussing, the vast majority of families in the US would qualify for financial aid. According to Harvard’s net price calculator, they give need based aid at incomes as high as $230,000 (without large assets). More specific numbers for some situations are below. In all cases, I am assuming a 3 person family with no other children and a half a year’s salary worth of savings/assets. </p>
<p>Annual Income – Cost to Parents
$65,000 – $0
$100,000 – $8,000
$150,000 – $15,000
$200,000 – $43,000
$250,000 – full price</p>
<p>Harvard’s website says the majority of existing students receive need based financial aid, and those receiving aid pay an average of $12,000 per year. They say 20% of parents have a low enough income to pay nothing.</p>
<p>School A might, for example, offer a good quality AP calculus AB course, while an elite HS may offer that, a good quality AP calculus BC course, and perhaps more advanced math courses of good quality.</p>
<p>A good, but not great, student in math may be capable of handling AP calculus AB in high school, but not a faster paced AP calculus BC course or more advanced math courses that are available at the elite HS. Such a student may not find any curriculum advantage in math by going to the elite HS. Other subjects could be analogous.</p>
<p>(Meanwhile, School B, if it offers AP calculus AB at all, would be offering a low quality course, after which most of the students score 1 on the AP test even if they got A grades in the course.)</p>
<p>“At the highly selective colleges we have been discussing, the vast majority of families in the US would qualify for financial aid.” - True. I should have clarified that to mean most families reading these CC threads. I suspect that includes OP who has enough income to buy a house and even to consider housing in the more expensive school district. But I could be wrong.</p>
<p>From my observation, some very competitive high schools (with API better than 900, I only checked 4) have around 10% of students admitted to UC Berkeley, while high schools with API below 800 may only have less than 2%. All these schools are within 20 miles of where I live. To put things in perspective, straight A students that fall outside of the top 2% from lesser API schools are still getting 5 on Calculus BC AP test.</p>
<p>I don’t know how useful API score is. I use it as a reference point.</p>
They don’t count home equity or retirement accounts in the totals, which greatly reduces assets. So according the the calc, a family with $150k/yr income and $900k in non-home/retirement assets still gets financial aid, even if the $900k is in cash savings. A family with $200k/yr income and more than $300k in assets still gets financial aid. With multiple children in college, income can go as high as $340k/yr and still get financial aid. I very much doubt that the majority of posters on CC are in this group. The vast majority who list their income in decision threads certainly are not, and even if they are, you said this no FA group would find the college unaffordable. Some families that have an income of >$300k/yr or a million in savings find college affordable.</p>
<p>I think the number of students admitted must also be considered. In the area I live, top schools consistently have students admitted to top private schools every year, while average schools may have one every few years.</p>
<p>I also observe the ranking of students from different districts attending the same private tutoring classes. It is not unusual to see top student from less competitive school being tested and ranked outside of top 100 when ranked with students from very competitive schools.</p>
Thank you, turbo93 - so well said! That describes a sizable number of families here, too.</p>