<p>Could it be that these top students have the grades, scores, etc that are required to survive at Wharton? Why would someone with less than minimum requirements apply to Wharton? There is a reason that top students are accepted; perhaps they can do the work and graduate from Wharton w/o flunking out? Perhaps they are able to handle the workload? Sorry, I just don’t buy into the corruption idea and by the way spouse is a Wharton grad.</p>
<p>a lot of the “target” schools are also overrepresented with Penn having ED. At most, if not all, of these schools (mine included, it was one of the ones previously mentioned) the top 3-4% is virtually guarenteed a spot at Penn if they apply ED. Therefore, even if Penn is a close second with a school like Princeton or Harvard, a person will apply to Penn or Wharton ED to make sure they end up at one of them. Thus, something like 5% of the class ends up going to Penn, but there may only be 3 or 4 people going to other Ivies, which makes the total percentage going to top schools not as imbalanced.</p>
<p>thats actually te opposite of mine…nobody ever gets in penn they hate us</p>
<p>lol i go to Central High School in Philadelphia. I believe it sends more students to Penn than any other school in the country. Masterman may have a higher percent rate going to Penn, but its a small class number, so it the percent should be higher… Central sends what? like 20-25 kids to Penn each year. I know for a fact that 19 kids got in this year, 2 for wharton. JHS, where do you go?</p>
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<p>I live very close to Pingry (and know kids at that school). We have similar (though not as stellar) results at my public school. The thing is, we live in an affluent area where most parents have a college degree and even more are educated about the college admissions process. It’s little surprise they got 5 kids in ED.</p>
<p>Could legacy be a factor in this?</p>
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<p>Under its charter, Penn actually has a requirement to educate a certain number of people from Philadelphia. There are not so many places to find people who are qualified: 4-5 Quaker schools, a couple of elite Catholic schools, the two public academic magnets and the one “good” neighborhood high school, 4-5 other private schools. </p>
<p>So your snarkiness is a little ujustified, cc2. Believe me, if you are a Philadelphia kid who is in range for Penn, it is overwhelmingly likely that you are at one of maybe 15 schools. Of course those schools are going to send a lot of kids to Penn. And the top students at “non-target public schools” in the city are rarely good candidates for Penn. (This may change in the next few years, since a bunch of new, small theme high schools have been opening and have been siphoning some academically-oriented kids away from the magnet schools.)</p>
<p>Penn would love to take students from more schools in Philadelphia. In my daughter’s year, it accepted a kid from one of the “bad” neighborhood high schools. This was the greatest kid in the world – my daughter knew him and agreed – 4.0 unweighted, best student in the school in 20 years, leader of everything, completely charming, the newspapers wrote stories about him. His SATs were under 1100, and he needed extensive remedial academic work before he could start. Except for that kid and one or two athletes, every public school kid in Philadelphia in recent years who has gone to any Ivy or equivalent college, not just Penn, has come from one of three schools. (Two of which are the two largest high schools in the city, and represent a really meaningful percentage of kids who actually graduate from public high school.)</p>
<p>In past years many hooked applicants (athletes, large donors, etc) apply early, get a likely letter, and then get officially accpted. Remember, Harvard got rid of early this past year (but they still probably gave out likely letters to assuage stress from important applicants), so they still had early for many many years in the past. 5 from one school from one year (if they usually have 2-3 ED and this was a really good year) isn’t outrageous.</p>
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You’re referring to Central, Masterman, and Girls’?</p>
<p>psh girls high isnt that reputable any more. It’s going down the drain. I say northeast magnet sends more kids to Penn than GHS… Central and Masterman are still up there though. yay central :]</p>
<p>Yes, I was referring to Central, Masterman, and Northeast. Girls may get onesies and twosies from time to time, but the combination of co-education at Central 25 years ago, the opening of Masterman, and the general decline in the city’s public school system has generally changed the character of Girls High. I think it is still an excellent institution that does a good job by its students, but by and large a student who is a strong candidate for Penn would not be there. Northeast is the neighborhood high school for the one area of the city with consistently good neighborhood elementary schools and a great magnet middle school, and it’s really the only healthy neighborhood high school in the city. It keeps a fair number of strong students in part because Central and Masterman are very inconvenient for kids who live near it.</p>
<p>Northeast has a subsection of the school that is also a magnet though, no? I suspect this is where most of the students who get into Penn come from.</p>
<p>cc2, are you referring to Pingry’s class of 2007? If so, only 5 people went to Penn overall, so nobody else got in RD. Six went to Yale, 5 to Harvard, 4 to Columbia. They seem to be pretty consistent among the top schools. If you look over the past five years, a few more people went to Penn (25) than all the other schools (Harvard - 18, Georgetown - 19, Yale - 15), but that could be due to more legacy connections (since it’s pretty close to Philadelphia).</p>
<p>Also, consider the fact that New Jersey is full of people who work in New York, including a lot of people who work on Wall Street. I live somewhat near Pingry, and that demographic is pretty prominent from here to Bergen County (right next to NYC). Isn’t it more likely that the children of businessmen and businesswomen are inclined to pursue business themselves (and thus apply to Wharton)? And doesn’t it make make sense if they attend private schools since their parent(s) work in a high-paying industry? There could be some logic behind this supposed corruption.</p>
<p>Alternatively, we could accept the American truth that politics can trump merit. It never really ends, so learn to accept it early on.</p>
<p>well, the thing with northeast high is, it’s magnet program is somewhat the Central High for the far northeast students. I live near Northeast high but i chose to go to Central because i can manage to commute to it. There are kids who would have to take 3 buses etc to get to it and just end up choosing Northeast Magnet. I was considering choosing Northeast magnet since its nearby. In the end, northeast magnet is still not as good. Its okay, but its education is declining rapidly. Only the very top brilliant students get to make it into Penn. Usually, northeast sends like 5-10 students to Penn. Masterman, we cannot compare. You have to be in the middle school to get into the high school and getting into the middle school is a bit tough. Its not THAT hard but still. I probably would have gone to the middle school but i never knew about it. You are supposed to apply 5th grade and i just never knew it even existed or anything. But a Central Education is just as good.</p>
<p>Masterman actually kicks out about half its class between 8th grade and the start of high school, so getting into the middle school is no guarantee of high school admission. There are also a couple of kids who get in during high school every year, but it is very uncommon (There was only one in my year). Masterman largely builds its reputation in this way. By being the unchallenged best public middle school in the city, it gets first crack at the best students, the overwhelming majority of which want to stay for high school. Masterman’s quality of education comes from having the best students and teachers who very badly want to teach there; Central has far superior funding and facilities.</p>
<p>Maybe we should - maybe - entertain the notion that they were simply qualified students. I go to a public high school that’s half IB in rainy WA. FIVE seniors were accepted to John Hopkins. </p>
<p>Sometimes, the numbers are nothing more than numbers. They’re just smart kids.</p>
<p>well, true, Central does get A LOT of funding and stuff from its Alumni (Which are AMAZING, bill cosby, one of the three stooges, glen hurricane swarts (NBC head meteorologist for philly), and many others.) Central has many ingenious kids who probably didnt know about masterman, or didnt want to go to masterman for different reasons (such as being too small or not wanting to leave current school).</p>
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<p>Well said, theoneo.</p>