<p>In the neighboring four towns, one sends few HYPSM in two out of three years and a dozen of students to top 20 universities and top 10 LACs. The second sends no HYPSM but a half dozen to top 20 schools. The third sends few to top 20. And the other sends no top 20 schools. All are ranked highly as a public in our state. It has been like this for over decades. I don’t see any difference for the socio-economic status among these towns. I could buy a house in any one of these towns. However, the consequence would be very different, even a kid became the best one, based on the school. What could be happening?</p>
<p>I would not buy a house because I thought it would get my child into HYPS or any other college for that matter. Just my humble opinion.</p>
<p>We did build our house in a highly regarded school district (where only 3 kids have gone to HYPSM) EVER. The district met the needs of our kids very well and they both went to the colleges of their choice (not HYPSM or the like).</p>
<p>It may just be the environment: some communities are more attracted to the idea of their children attending tippy top schools so more apply. The more kids who apply and are accepted, the more the guidance counselors know what the colleges are looking for. It’s a cycle.</p>
<p>I think the importance of attending top ranked schools is weighed more heavily on the East Coast. Reading CC, you would think that every kid in the country wants to attend an Ivy League school or at least attend the top college that they are accpted to, but that isn’t reality. Some super smart talented kids are very happy with their state flagship or some other nearby school.</p>
<p>It might also be a difference in the Guidance department. Our high school has a dedicated College Guidance Counselor. Most of the high schools in the other districts do not and have the double duty of HS class scheduling and college guidance.</p>
<p>I think the most important aspect is the mindset of the community; if your child grows up in a location where college is regarded as less important and there’s less drive of those around him to get to a top school, that will very likely impact how he approaches the matter. If, instead, he grows up in a location where everyone around him is driven to get to a top college and not going to college is almost a taboo, he’s going to be more likely to at least intend to go somewhere. Also, as has been said before, having a guidance counselor who knows and helps with the process is quite helpful, and more likely to be found at a better school.</p>
<p>^^yes, the guidance counselors at our very large suburban public h.s. spent most of their time on scheduling,testing and behavior issues. In the spring there’s always a meeting for juniors/parents about FA but in my kids experience, not a lot of counseling went on. They don’t even send out transcripts to colleges. It’s the students’ responsibility to request them (and pay for them if more than three are requested) and mail them to the colleges themselves.<br>
I would say our area is fairly affluent.The vast majority of kids go to instate public u’s. We have a large state system that most are happy to attend…even the top of the class kids.</p>
<p>PackMom, our kids could be going to the same school! We are in the Midwest, and GC don’t even have the software capability to submit the common application electronically. This is an affluent and highly ranked high school, too. </p>
<p>We also lack Naviance, have a cobbled together and far from complete resource library for researching school, and little support for kids looking to go OOS. the Ivies are a world away…</p>
<p>Depending on the size of the school - the difference between school one and school two may just be too small a sample size. I do think the culture/economics of the community can make a difference. For example many of our Hispanic first generation students go to nearby public colleges. This seems especially true of the girls - I think there is a lot of family pressure to stay close.</p>
<p>I think it’s less what kind of technology does the school use, and more what kind of opportunities does it support. Does it fund academic teams? Does it provide gateways to academic-related outside opportunities? Or is it all sports? The differences are not so much economic but opportunity-oriented, and it speaks to the educational experience, not the ultimate destination of alumni.</p>
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<p>I guess this has me confused. Why would the GC be submitting the common ap? Isn’t that something the STUDENT submits?</p>
<p>Thumper1, if MereMom is saying what I think she is, (the issue we also had at our school) even though D submitted the Common App electronically, she could not have her teacher recommendations or guidance counselor recommendations submitted electronically. We had to do all of those on paper and provide pre-addressed stamped envelopes for her school related letters of recommendation.</p>
<p>I have the feeling that once a student or two “breaks through” into HYPSM, the school is on the radar of these schools, and so every year they are a bit more likely to accept students from there.</p>
<p>I also think the guidance counselor theory is very likely to be the main reason. H/she could be cultivating relationships with the HYPSM regional representatives too.</p>
<p>For some young people, peer pressure, herd mentality figures strongly. If they are at a school where a lot of the kids have aspirations to go to selective schools, it may have a bigger impact than if they are at a school where nearly everyone goes to State U. Of course, home life and many other factors come heavily in play–DH and I are examples of people who went very much against the grain of our high school peers’ futures. However, there is an impact for some kids.</p>
<p>The issue is one of trends. We live in a very well off to do suburb and our HS graduating class publishes where every senior is going to college. </p>
<p>I have followed it over a 5 year period and back in the old days out of 1000 students you’d see 4-5 Ivies, another 20-30 in top 10 schools, and so on. Since the recession hit things changed for the worse. This year only two in Ivies, and total of 10 in top schools. An astonishing number are attending the statewide 2 year community college system and nearly one in three is going to Flagship State U. </p>
<p>Having said this, I would not put much weight on choosing a school district on this Our district has a bewildering collection of courses at the HS level, which can often be very useful in showing one what the field they’re interested in may look like, etc. Plenty of guidance counselors (a bit on the optimistic side college wise, they need to do some continuing education on CollegeConfidential) but for the most part, they do the job.</p>
<p>I think top schools are actually prospecting for students from schools that have never sent a student to the college. So, paradoxically, in some situations, being enrolled at the school that has never sent a kid to, say, Harvard or Yale, can actually help.</p>
<p>Actually, many colleges are not particular whether someone is from XYZ High School in Northern Idaho as opposed to ABC, if the school reports are similar. I find it amusing in many areas how very small differences in some schools are argued in terms of making one school “better” than another when such nuances disappear once you are out of the area. </p>
<p>It would be interesting to see if the kids from the high schools tend to apply to the same colleges proportionally. The acceptance rates over time may tell a story if they are very different. </p>
<p>When I lived in the midwest, our public high school was considered one of the best in that part of the state. 95% of the kids went on to college with close to 90% going on to 4 year colleges. But if you looked at where the kids were going, nearly all of them went either to the state flagship which was the big goal, or to a school within an hour of home, with a significant number of kids commuting. We were lucky to have a number of 4 year schools within a commuting distance. It always got to me, however, that there were a significant number of kids applying to small expensive private colleges that are not at all known outside of the area–I’ve never even seen some of them come up in on this board and I don’t know a single kid in the NYC area who has even applied or looked into these schools. A number of very good students would go to these colleges, some on scholarships. But for some families, those were very expensive schools for the lack of national name recognition, and other stats. The primary reason that kids applied there was because those schools were known in the area–familiarity. </p>
<p>Few kids went to east coast school because few of them applied there. When you have a dozen kids applying to HPY, for instance, with that 5-10% accept rates at those schools, it makes sense that only one or even no kids were accepted to such schools in given years.</p>