<p>I am currently in the application stage of my college search, and I am so far applying to Bucknell, Sewanee, UTK, and probably Vanderbilt, and I’m looking into Vassar. I have some good scores (32 ACT = 1420 SAT) and a 4.0 GPA, but my High School is quite frankly a very lame institution. We have 2 classes of Anatomy and Physiology with 57 kids and 22 textbooks. Calc 2 was dropped as a class offering because we couldn’t get 15 people to sign up. We have had maybe 3 5’s on AP Chemistry tests in the past 5 years since our AP chemistry teacher is more involved in Yearbook than teaching, and I have honors and AP classes with more than 35 kids. I live in an Appalachian Tennessee town of about 25,000 with about 50-60% of kids on free lunch, and needless to say, while we ranked somewhere in the US News and World report, it wasn’t an actual number rank… more like a low tier…</p>
<p>I’ve heard in my search that places like Bucknell have a very low rate of public school kids compared to private school (something like 40/60 or 30/70 at some schools). Since I go to a public school with highly inflated grades about something like 50 people above a 4.0 weighted GPA, do my scores mean less and therefore hinder my chances at a more selective school? Or will my class rank of 7 in a school of 357 and my location in a more rural and less recruited area make me more attractive to colleges?</p>
<p>to expand on ilmors data, 71% of bucknells enrolled class of 2011 came from public schools. further, the acceptance rates for public and private school students were virtually identical: 29.8% for public school students to 30.1% for their private school counterparts.</p>
<p>most colleges dont publish that much data, but they usually will provide a public/private school breakdown for enrolled students. vassars class of 2011 profile, for example, notes that 37% of students come from private schools.</p>
<hr>
<p>in terms of what all of this will mean for your chances at admission, the keys in coming from an uncompetitive school (mine didnt even pretend to offer calc 2 and is rated nowhere by usnews) are being near the top of your class–check–and posting a competitive, even if not great, standardized test score–check again. youre fine there. and the fact that you would bring some geographic diversity to both bucknell and vassar will help in admissions at each, too.</p>
<p>Wow, Irish. Your situation sounds exactly like mine. 32 ACT, public HS, doesn’t offer Calc 2, and to top it off: currently ranked 7 out of ~350. That is creepy stuff.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies on the public school data. I wasn’t exactly sure on the public versus private data. I’ll admit that it’s nice to hear about more people coming from public schools than just 30%. It makes me feel a little better knowing my status doesn’t hinder me at all, so I’m really looking forward to getting into Bucknell if I can.</p>