Kids’ mediocre public high school had students in successive years go to Harvard and then Princeton…both African-American. School is about 20% Indian but despite lots of Ivy applications only one went–Penn.
Usually 1 every year at my kids’ districts graduating class around 180 - 200 depending on the year, sometimes 2 but the vast majority of the very top achievers end up at Chicago or UofM. Harvard, MIT and Stanford seem to be the choices. In the past decade I’m not aware of anyone going to Cornell, Yale or Penn and one year this decade a kid went to Dartmouth (legacy decision). The last Harvard bound student stayed freshman year and transferred to Michigan so that might have a ripple effect in coming years, it happened 2 years ago.
Good public high school, only one in small suburb of state capital, 500 or so students, class of 2011: at least two students went to Stanford; one student went to Harvard (recruited athlete); one or two to service academies. My daughter, one of top two or three students in her class, 35 ACT, well-rounded, applied to and was not accepted at Brown, Dartmouth, and Stanford. She ended up at a small LAC and has done very well there.
Even the none selective privates in my area have kids accepted I to the Ivies and the like. I think this has to do with full pay. In my sons large public HS, it was the exceptional who got into HYP. For example, class president, URM, and I suspect top grades. People were not going to pay full fare for very good schools like Emory, WUSTL! UCh , when they can go for free to flagship.
My son was one of these exceptions, applying as a junior, to top CS schools. I am still pleased that the tech schools took him seriously, while the Ivies (with parent alum, and 20 relatives in another) dissed him.
The fact that the OP has never seen a student accepted to the ivies (et al) tells me that his school is off the radar.
I have noticed that the top colleges, especially, seem to take students from the same high schools year after year. Where I live in the northeast, it’s very apparent. At some high schools, certain ivies will go deep into the class every year, while at the school the next town over they won’t take anyone for years and years, regardless of credentials. I think admissions officers get to know certain high schools and they take their kids - this is certainly true of the boarding and private schools where there are lots of legacies, but it also has a lot to do with the relationships admissions officers build with HS guidance counselors.
Our little Podunk high school located in the woods…with a graduating class hovering around 150…sends one kid to an Ivy almost every year, and many to other really fine schools…Hopkins, BC, Duke, Vandy, a number of Big 10 flagships, USC, Stanford, Cal, UCLA, Northwestern, University of Chicago, and the like.
To quote another poster…“imagine that!”
I’m not sure why the question in this OP matters at all, unless one thinks the only road to success is surrounded by Ivy.
I agree gourmetmom, but my son was the exemption, the first to e accepted at 2:3 colleges he applied to. Hope is not lost.
Once again, you need to look at the numbers. That’s all. Numbers.
There are maybe 20,000 freshman slots in the “Ivies” and there are 30,000 secondary schools. That means there are two “Ivy” freshmen from every three schools. If you then consider that some prep schools send over a hundred students each as well as all the other large, competitive public schools who send dozens, what you’ve got left is maybe one student getting Ivy for every 5 or 10 schools.
And, it’s not like the prep schools have a monopoly on Ivy entrance. That’s just where the talent tends to collect. Same for the large competitive public schools, particularly if they are located outside the gates of a major university where the faculty has kids or in large cities where the well-to-do work and who also tend to cluster in particular communities and high schools. My kids have been wistfully told numerous times by the prep school crowd how lucky they are to have not come from one of the top feeders. It’s actually harder to get in from them despite many of the advantages in counseling and whatnot.
In our area there are five communities and five high schools. We are probably sending about 4 or 5 students a year to such schools, so that’s w-a-a-y-y above the “average” and we have no magnet schools, no gifted programs or anything beyond a single year accelerated math track. We haven’t passed supplementary funding in decades.
It’s amusing to see people sloboviate all over Vals and Sals in the “chance me for Harvard” threads, but there again, we go back to the fact that there are 60,000 of them and only 20,000 Ivy slots. Huge numbers of them are not getting Ivy.
Right now, there are 35,000 files in the office at Harvard, and only a thousand more of them are going to get in.
People are told time and again that the Ivies are selective, but very few seem to get it.
As far as I am aware in the past 10 years, our rural Wisconsin HS has never sent a kid to an “Ivy”. But I honestly don’t think more than 5 kids have even applied. Top students here virtually all go to UW Madison, with the adventurous types opting for UMinnesota, UIowa, Marquette or midwestern liberal arts colleges (Lawrence and Carleton being the big 2 for us). I’m pretty sure some of these kids could have gotten into some random “Ivy”, but it just isn’t on their radar.
Interesting, I would like to know how to change mind of the straight A student from Stuyvesant from being so focused on all those Ivy’s. Has somebody done this? We would like it to be her own decision though. Why these kids feel that the only way to success is to attend Ivy? Water in NYC must be poisoned to wash their brains.
Edward Lewis from “Pretty Woman” can tell you why; “It’s the best.”
MiamiDAP - I can tell you why students from Stuyve are more focused on Ivies or similar schools. Students from Stuyve are very smart students from middle to lower income families. They could get better FA at schools that meet full need, therefore cheaper than going to other schools. Most upper middle class students, who could afford full fare, would most likely go to schools like Dalton or Horace Mann, and those students wouldn’t have to take finance into consideration when it comes to college choice.
You are comparing apples to oranges.
Harvard admits kids that have the most outstanding transcripts, test scores,ECs and personal stories. Harvard doesn’t really care where they come from.
As a percentage, I’m sure Harvard takes way more kids from Exeter’s graduating class each year as compared to Topeka Regular High School. That doesn’t mean that it is harder for a smart, driven, talented kid to get into Harvard from Topeka High. It just means that a much higher percentage of Exeter’s class are Harvard-ish kids than you likely find at Topeka High. It might actually be easier to get in from Topeka High, because most of the Topeka kids aren’t in the Harvard game while most/all of the Exeter kids are.
Maybe 10% of kids go to private high schools yet 50% of Harvard’s class come from privates. That doesn’t mean that private schools cause your Harvard chances to improve. More likely it is just correlation – kids who have the talent and interest to try for Harvard (as well as the family resources) are much more likely to gravitate to a private school.
The top couple of kids from my local area’s high schools go to the fancy schools year after year. One kid a year to Harvard from a 2,000 student public high school can be a lot, once you factor in that 1,900 of those 2,000 kids aren’t even trying to play the fancy college game.
I don’t think that at all. I was just curious because on another thread there was discussion about how easy it is to get into a top school from a Public (dozens per year to Ivies) and it didn’t match my experience.
^^How easy did that other thread say it was?
From our high school quite a few kids just like him. But also some quirkier kids with very defined (even obsessive) interests that they pursued at a very high level while getting good (but not perfect!) grades overall.
We are a less wealthy town in a very wealthy high achieving county. Top kids in our school often have pretty savvy parents who don’t earn the big bucks, but are smart enough to help their kids through the process. The kids in the top 5-10% of the class who take 5-10 AP courses do very well in college admissions. (Not just Ivies, but the selective LACs as well.) Many also choose honors programs at State Universities.
“dozens per year to Ivies from my public school, and 120 (I think it was) to Michigan”
Sure, it happens, but that would be someone yakking about what is obviously an exceptional school and an exceptional student body.
One factor is guidance counselors who still don’t understand that privates, including especially Ivies with amazing financial aid, may very well be more affordable than public colleges/universities.
Our mediocre school system had maybe 4 students get into Ivies in 10 years. Those who got in were not top of the class or class president nor did they take all of the most difficult classes. Instead, they were self-starters with strong interests outside of school.
This amazing financial aid that people are finding out about may be part of what is driving up application numbers to crazy levels for limited slots. The Common Application seems to .drive up numbers for some schools as well.