<p>I am unconvinced that elite schools spend their marketing budgets on kids out in the sticks trying to “get the word out”. Comparing notes between relatives who are in small midwestern towns and looking around my well to do surroundings, it’s the kids in the well to do schools that get the unsolicited novels about school XYZ sent to them. Partly because it is the well to do schools that have the test scores that trigger the mailings, and of course the money to send applications.</p>
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<p>Actually, some schools do weigh which geographic region and even which high school a student attends to increase geographic/socioeconomic diversity and sometimes, to favor applicants from high schools producing successful students/graduates<em>, and to scrutinize applicants from high schools where past admits have struggled academically, dropped out, or turned them down en masse</em>. </p>
<p>All the above have been confirmed by friends, acquaintances, and a relative who worked in Ivy/elite university/college admission offices. </p>
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<li>Both of these factors ended up impacting elite/Ivy admissions for both good and ill respectively at my urban public magnet high school historically.</li>
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<p>Of course, wouldn’t standardized final exams for high school courses also mean that there is more consistency across high schools, and there is no need for college admissions specific tests like the SAT and ACT?</p>
<p>Another thing to consider about the UK system - specialization occurs before the application process. While a student might be taking 10+ subjects at GCSE, typically 4 are done at AS and 3 or 4 at A2. So, students need to know what they want to pursue before the beginning of the equivalent to junior year. Those subjects need to be related to the course you want to follow at university.<br>
Also, A2 grades are not released until the middle of August. Students don’t know if they have their uni place until then. If you are one point off an A* and you needed that grade to fulfill your offer, you’re out.<br>
I’m not sure that this makes for consistency amongst high schools. There is a wide range in secondary school performance here. It does introduce greater consistency in grading, which should already exist in the US with AP exams.</p>
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<p>What?? I have no idea where that came from. Our systems are designed differently, that’s a fact, and they aren’t designed to have quite the same outcome. I’m sorry if you read the tone of my post in the wrong way. I wasn’t passing judgment on the systems just stating the difference between them. I think a US style uni education might actually suit me better, I like the idea of studying more subjects in slightly less depth, and not picking just one subject, but it’s not available here. Likewise, a US student who wants to go straight into a Medical degree can’t do that in your system, they have to abroad or spend money on an undergrad degree first.</p>
<p>“Of course, wouldn’t standardized final exams for high school courses also mean that there is more consistency across high schools, and there is no need for college admissions specific tests like the SAT and ACT?”</p>
<p>The UK operates a national curriculum and centralised administered exams followed by most schools, even privates ones. Some subjects (Medicine, History) have introduced supplementary tests as well</p>
<p>It is a VERY different system, that is looking for applicants to demonstrate their proficiency and commitment to the academic subject they are applying to study - admissions are not looking for ‘all rounders’. There is early focus on 3-4 subjects in junior and senior year of HS, and then one/two for your degree. Academic results are the main factor in gaining entry to university, although some ECs do help with the application (e.g. shadowing a doctor for medicine, school newspaper editor for English). </p>
<p>If there are interviews, they are often with professors in the subject you have applied for and and questions will be almost always about academics. e.g. if you apply for English, you might be given a piece of prose, sight unseen, 5 mins to read it, then asked various questions to provoke a discussion…Oxbridge interviews are a very unusual experience but there is lots of help and advice out there, on youtube, and on various internet forums. I doubt it is easier to get accepted to Oxbridge if you are an international. It MAY be easier to get an interview based on stats etc, but you still need to perform well once you get there…</p>
<p>Neither system is better, just very different…</p>
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<p>However, in the US, admissions are conditional as well. Granted, the conditions may not normally be that difficult, but every year on these forums we see postings from students whose lower senior year grades cause them to question whether their admission offers will be canceled.</p>
<p>I like the fact that academics are the only criterion for admission in the UK system (other than the crew team), but I don’t like the fact that you are locked into one major.</p>
<p>US admissions are not conditional in quite the same way. Here in the UK you are made an offer based on particular grades. You accept only one offer of the five before you receive those grades. So, for instance, S’s friend accepted an offer from Cambridge for which he must achieve A<em>, A, A at A2 level. If his results are A, A, A and he has only missed that A</em> by one point, he doesn’t go to Cambridge. There would be no question at all. He certainly would not have slacked off by receiving all A grades. I can’t imagine any US school rescinding an admissions offer because the student got all As.</p>
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<p>True, US schools do not impose such high conditions, although they do have conditions whose fulfillment is only known after the student decides which school to attend (May 1 is the typical deadline to decide, but most high schools do not finish and issue final grades until June). The conditions may seem laughable compared to what the UK schools specify… for example, Berkeley is said to require that admitted high school seniors get at least a 3.0 (unweighted) GPA senior year with no D or F grades.</p>
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<p>Barring sudden onset of severe illness in the last semester or some other unforeseen extreme mishap, most situations where GPAs drop sharply to the point US universities rescind admission are usually ones derived from senioritis or going out of their way to not give adequate respect to a few courses. </p>
<p>You REALLY had to screw up to get rescinded for academic reasons…like a 3.7+ cumulative GPA going into second-semester senior year ending up with the last semester’s record being all Cs or worse…or one or more D/F grade.</p>