I went to a small private day school—around 30 in my graduating class—as a scholarship student. No ranking, no GPAs calculated, no AP classes offered. My grades were pretty much A-/B+. 1410 SATs. Applied only to one school—early decision to Swarthmore—and was accepted. I played no sports and there weren’t many other extracurriculars. I had jobs through high school and summers. Very strong writing skills and essays.
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I was a weirdo then and would be a weirdo now.
I had straight Fs my last three semesters of high school at a fancy private school. 800 V 730 M. Got a GED and worked for two years. Applied to ten 4-year schools during my second gap year and was denied everywhere I applied. Bryn Mawr was the only school that was willing to fight with me about the denial, eventually put me on the waitlist, and accepted me late in the summer. I made straight As at Bryn Mawr and tried to transfer after my freshman year, and I was denied everywhere again. After two years, though, I was accepted as a transfer at Harvard, Stanford, and Penn, and started at Harvard in fall of '97 as a 22-year-old junior. I kept making straight As, graduated Phi Beta Kappa, and went to Harvard Law.
Do not try this at home, even with a time machine.
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Amazing! It all worked out but boy you did it the hard way 
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I’ve always loved your story Hanna, but yeah do not try this at home!
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This type of path is not unheard of, except that the schools are typically different:
| School | @Hanna | Typical |
|---|---|---|
| High School | Fancy Private High School | Typical Public High School |
| First College | Bryn Mawr College | Community College |
| Transfer To | Harvard University | State University |
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I’ll play.
Graduated from HS in 1966, before the dinosaurs were extinct.
I was 23rd in a class of 246. Just squeaked into the top 10%.
Total SAT score, adjusted, was 1420. Had one AP, in English, and tested high enough to get credit once I was in college. That allowed me to graduate a quarter early.
Applied to three schools – University of Rochester, Washington U in St. Louis, and Northwestern. Was accepted at all three. Went to Northwestern.
Times were soooooooo different.
In my HS class, we had people who went to Harvard (1), Dartmouth (1), Brown (4), Princeton (1), UPenn (2), Univ of Chicago (2), CalTech (1), Columbia (2). I had brilliant students in my class, in an affluent NYC suburb with an outstanding school system.
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- Public school in poor southern state in working class town. Valedictorian, 99% on SAT and ACT. Dance team, dance, science club, math club, debate, and outside of school science activities. Applied to three places, including an Ivy and a -tech and got into all three. I grew up in the kind of town where boys made dumbass mistakes that involved guns and dirt bikes and losing eyes and limbs and girls got pregnant.
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This is one of the greatest sentences in the history of CC. (And I lived in a town like that!)
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I agree. I grew up in that kind of town, too.
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Yes, and every stop sign had bullet holes in it (target practice). My kids didn’t believe me till we visited my hometown when they were in their teens.
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This is fascinating! Adding mine- Graduated in the late 80s from a strong suburban public school in the lower Midwest GPA ~3.9 #8/~380 students with highest level of classes offered but they didn’t have specific AP classes- we just took the tests if we felt prepared. SAT 660V/700 M (once only as a junior). Admitted to IU (Bloomington), Miami of Ohio, UVA, William and Mary, Wash U, Vanderbilt, and Duke (spring then offered fall). Rejected from Dartmouth. I was involved in vocal music/piano and multiple science fairs. There is no way I would be admitted to most of those schools today.
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I’ll play. I graduated from a small above average public high school in the mid-80s. I was in the top 15 % of my graduating class, about a 3.2 GPA. A mix of honors and college prep classes, no APs. 1240 SAT. One extracurricular activity, no leadership experience, no sports, not a legacy.
I got into Colgate early decision. I didn’t apply anywhere else.
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I went to HS in the late 60s/early 70s. No idea what my GPA was but I think I was in the top few students in my grade. SATs were high 1400s I think. My scores ould be higher today because a) I would have studied (the mythology at the time was that you could not prepare for these tests); and b) the SATs have shifted up a couple of times. I don’t think that the English major types who were AdCom folks in those days really understand what extracurriculars and plans were, although I think that now AdComs offices would get it. I had a job writing software in HS at Bell Labs working on the first Unix machine. I attended a NSF summer program on math and social science and wrote my essay on how I wanted to use math, statistics and numerical methods to model human behavior, probably in legislative voting. I don’t think the AdCom folks understood that at all, either. I think the 21st century equivalents of my summer jobs and my field of interest would be hot today. I was also a doubles player on the HS tennis team that won the state championship, although I was not good enough to get recruited. I applied to Princeton, Yale, Cornell, Michigan Honors College and University of Rochester. My older sister was at Rochester and it and Michigan Honors College were my safeties. I got in everywhere but Yale.
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This reminds me of the SNL Boomer Game Show. FUN!
I went to public school in NC in the early 90s, where – check this! – Penn Holderness (of Holderness Family fame) was a year ahead of me in school and kind of a stud. If memory serves, he dated at least two different cheerleaders, starred in the school musical, and played a lot of basketball.
Meanwhile, i was pulling mostly As in my honors and AP classes (but Bs every year in at least one math or science class after freshman year). I did one big extracurricular activity (music), where I was a moderately large fish in a very small pond but not at all competitive by national standards. I was an exchange student junior year. But I didn’t play a sport, or volunteer, or really do anything outside of school and my one instrument. I think I was 4th in my class but only because I got really good grades in Germany junior year and those got factored into my GPA. I think I got around a 1420 on my SATs.
Today those stats wouldn’t get me into UNC. Back then I got into Yale EA and Princeton RA and didn’t apply anywhere else. (Penn got into UVa.)
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I can see this 
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That junior year abroad would have made you very unique then. (I think more important than the GPA boost.)
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I went to a large suburban HS, graduated with about 800 kids. I don’t know my rank but it was top 10% because I got a gold tassel to wear at graduation :).
I don’t recall my SAT scores but I think I was a commended student? I didn’t study, just took it cold. We weren’t offered AP classes until senior year and I took AP English, AP French and AP Calc.
Even at this large HS, they only had one or 2 classes of students each year who took Calc. It was “too advanced” for most students.
I was in the accelerated math and science track due to junior high testing but no one thought to put me in honors English. After a 10th grade English class that consisted of a hippie dippie teacher talking about gardening, music, and reading no books, my parents finally asked that I be bumped up.
There was no weighting for honors or AP classes. I applied to schools based on where they were ranked in the Petersen guide book and that they were less than 3 hours away. My parents were ecstatic that I was going to college in general (they did not have that experience) so none of us thought about visiting or seeing if a school was a “good fit.” It was sleep away college and you got a degree - what more could you ask for?
I got into Lafayette, Muhlenberg, Dickinson, F&M and Bucknell and went to Bucknell. Several HS classmates went there too, the HS classmates who ranked higher than me went to Ivies, MIT, etc. A large contingent went to directional universities or our state school. My HS was way more diverse than my college.
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)
But we raised this generation this competition (college admission, sports, etc) must be on on us! (In general/overall, not everyone of course)
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