What colleges now want per our private high school

Parents Forum
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<p>QM: I think your 10,000 number is about 20% too high. All of those colleges have about 10% international students. So, by my count, the actual number of US students enrolling in those colleges in any year is about 8,500. At least 1,000 of them are athletic recruits who are certainly extraordinary, but not necessarily academically. (A small number of the athletic recruits are also international.) And a certain number will be there because of extraordinary accomplishments in nonacademic fields (I am thinking about Natalie Portman, Jodie Foster, Yo Yo Ma). So it’s really 7,500 slots, at most, probably less than that. Of course, each of the colleges admits more students than the slots it has available, but there is also a lot of overlap among the accepted applicants at each college. I don’t know how many kids are accepted on one of these colleges and don’t attend any of them, but if you take people only accepted at Caltech out of the mix (Caltech has completely different admission dynamics than the others) the number can’t be more than a few hundred. So the actual number of possibly-extraordinary “students” they admit is not likely higher than 8,000, and probably a good deal less.</p>

<p>That is fewer than one kid for every three high schools. But some of those high schools have names like Exeter, Andover, St. Paul’s, Stuyvesant, Harker, New Trier, Harvard-Westlake, Brearley, Dalton, Sidwell Friends, etc. So for normal high schools, suburban or not, the ratio is probably lower than 1:5. All other things being equal, your school will send one kid to one of those six colleges every 5 years. Of course, even some normal high schools do consistently better than that, which means other normal high schools do consistently worse. In other words, the drought you are observing may not be a function of changing standards at all, but just the law of averages.</p>

<p>I agree with you that there aren’t 10,000, or even 8,000 or 7,000 truly “extraordinary” students available in any year. Maybe there are a couple thousand of them. But the number of really-great-but-not-extraordinary students in the next category down is way greater than 6-8,000. None of those students has any kind of moral claim to a slot on the basis of merit. Colleges are going to choose some and not others, based on whatever criteria they have, including ECs, or community service, or whatever.</p>

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<p>Those “extraordinary” student as defined by you guys they do not even need undergrad school. They can directly go to masters to specialize in their field of interest. </p>

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<p>Perhaps the point here is that if a student has a strong interest or talent that he or she has put a lot of energy into, in school or out, but doesn’t have tippy top grades or scores, then he or she could still apply to Harvard or other top schools and have a chance. But everyone should keep their expectations down once the application is in.</p>

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<p>This seems reasonable.</p>

<p>I would satisfied if people who showed academic prowess above and beyond what you would expect from a 4.0 GPA with 2250+/2400 SAT scores (with some ECs) were on equal footing with people with similar stats who stuffed their schedules with ECs/community service projects. I think that would be an improvement. </p>

<p>And I think they should ask this question more often: could <em>anybody</em> do the ECs a candidate had? The answer for the vast majority of community service projects is, “Yes.” In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a community service project from high school that would be difficult to pull off.</p>

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<p>Just remember it’s a full app and not just academics and the list of ECs and some words about how “passionate” they are. The writing has to show the right attributes. Shallow thinking doesn’t cut much. “Show, not tell” can be applied.</p>

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<p>This question could be taken two different ways. </p>

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<li><p>Does everyone have the opportunity to do this EC?
Not everyone has the opportunity to jet off to India to spend a week feeding starving orphans, but most kids could spend an hour or two a week working at the local food bank or helping deliver food to shut-ins. </p></li>
<li><p>Does everyone have the talent and will to do this EC?
Stuffing envelopes for a political candidate isn’t a bad use of time but it’s not particularly impressive. Becoming the volunteer coordinator, in charge of 50 teens and adults is.</p></li>
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<p>Good point. I was referring to #2, though.</p>

<p>Just putting in hours likely doesn’t help the application at all, and probably hasn’t since about 25 years ago. Being the coordinator does help the application and does show something about you, but in my opinion is still fairly easy. In fact, it’s probably easier if you are starting your own project than if you are part of an existing organization. </p>

<p>There are a few people that, even in high school, were really stars in terms of being organized, motivating people, and being community-minded. Maybe they should mirror how they treat academic stars and admit a small number of these people, instead of essentially making just about everyone do it. The amount or commitment to leadership activities that will distinguish you in the application pool to HYP is far more than is actually needed to show leadership and teamwork skills. </p>

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<p>I would modify compmom’s statement as follows (my edit in italics):</p>

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<p>Not that many kids do the extreme level of community service or outside activities some think is expected. It’s more that what a kid does choose to do can reflect (or not) his/her judgment and perspective, maturity and willingness to go forth or extend themselves- and that’s a different sort of “standing out.” I still say this idea achievement has to be officially recognized, awards should be accumulated or research published, isn’t quite the point when it comes to expanding one’s horizons/experience or efforts made for others. The vision, commitment, etc, are- and many kids can express it well in an app and through attitudes. But not all. </p>

<p>I personally don’t care if the parents started the kid on that path or why. Point is, he or she did experience it, over time. Entirely different than “I love to draw.” Many kids can express how fulfilling their work was or the new perspective gained, the satisfaction- without “oh, the poor orphans” or “wow, I really appreciate my wealth now.” Or, “look at how great I am.” That’s nice to find. </p>

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<p>With regard to JHS’s recent post, the statistical fluctuations in small numbers tend to be large, on a relative basis. So I am willing to entertain the possibility that a drop from a pattern like 5, 4, 6, 5, 4, 4, 5 to 0, 0, 1, 0, 1 might not reflect any actual change in admissions standards and the ability to meet them, just an unusual concentration of favorable outcomes, followed by an unusual concentration of adverse ones. On PG’s behalf, I will observe in advance that the school is not “entitled” to any admits, just based on the past pattern. However, this sort of looks to me like a shift. I suppose that additional years of data accumulation will reveal which explanation is correct.</p>

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<p>I always think it’s a good thing (in the bigger picture) that a particular hs pattern goes the way QM describes. It says that the colleges are looking for fresh blood from fresh schools. </p>

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<p>And bad luck for my colleagues’ children. I actually asked myself, a la Pizzagirl, why do I care about students I only know peripherally? And yet, I do.</p>

<p>I thought of another factor, involving housing prices–younger families who are concerned about education have in some cases been priced out of the local school district, and have tended to congregate in others. It’s ironic, really, because we were priced out of the formerly “educationally dominant” district.</p>

<p>To the extent that factor is operating, I am all for “fresh blood from fresh schools.” I am also in favor of colleges admitting strong students from schools they have rarely drawn from, before. However, I would not be in favor of the thought, “Oh, we’ve taken students from X Public Schools for multiple years running, and I am getting bored with seeing students from X. Let’s look elsewhere.”</p>

<p>In one more year, the students at the end of the current pattern will never have been in the same school building at the same time as the students in the “lucky” group. I am not in favor of carry-over effects from past students to whom current students are unrelated.</p>

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<p>It could be that a lot of schools are going from 5, 4, 6 to 1, 0, 1–if so, it might be because a whole bunch of other schools are going from 0, 0, 0, 0 to 0, 1, 0, 0. I think that’s what Pizzagirl is saying as well. And this could happen because the prevalence of plausible candidates for the top schools is getting more spread out, and not necessarily only because of college preferences.</p>

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<p>"However, I would not be in favor of the thought, “Oh, we’ve taken students from X Public Schools for multiple years running, and I am getting bored with seeing students from X. Let’s look elsewhere.”</p>

<p>Well, I’m glad that at one point Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc. were in favor of that thought - otherwise they’d still be mostly Andover, Groton, Exeter, etc. boarding school kids. Do you think that was good or bad that they decided to expand their horizons beyond traditional NE prep schools? </p>

<p>It’s my personal bias - and it doesn’t help me any, since my kids and I both applied to colleges from affluent suburban schools - but I love to see colleges give opportunities to kids who come from places where “no one ever went to” XYZ elite school. Whether it’s the inner city or whether it’s rural America or just a place where elite schools weren’t on the radar screen. </p>

<p>I also think there is a difference between “I’m looking for fresh new blood” and “I’m bored with New Trier.” Yes, the fresh new blood may come out of the hide of New Trier (so to speak) but that’s different from explicitly rejecting New Trier kids just because they are New Trier kids.</p>

<p>You can’t open up more opportunities for some without it coming out of the hide of others, but the motivations are critical, IMO. </p>

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<p>Think about it this way–what percentage of Harvard’s applicants come from Andover, as opposed to 30 years ago? I’ll bet it’s much, much smaller now. Now, Andover may still have a relatively high percentage of really, really competitive applicants–but I’ll bet even that is smaller now. There are kids from dinky high schools all over the country with really impressive achievements, and these days a lot more of them are applying to Harvard than in the past.</p>

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<p>Exactly. And if that means Andover’s numbers used to be 40,35,40 and now it’s only 5,6,5 (I’m pulling those numbers out of the air), is that a bad thing? </p>

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<p>It may be if you’re spending big bucks to send your kid to Andover.</p>

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<p>PG (1017) is right. If there is a great kid down the street or that other hs has implemented a fine new approach, that special kid they admit can come out of New Trier’s hide. Or preclude some nice kid from another neighboring school from getting in. It’s a balance. </p>

<p>The most elite BS still get their wins, so do Stuy and TJ- not always in the same quantities, but plenty. The fact their programs are so historically strong serves them well. (Don’t forget all the elite BS send their students to all levels of colleges.) If you want to get upset, think about kids at a greater NY state public competing against Stuy or the other solid schools in NYC and around. Same with Houston, say, vs some other areas in TX. Happens everywhere.</p>

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<p><a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/12/13/making-harvard-feeder-schools/[/url]”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/12/13/making-harvard-feeder-schools/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>That is fascinating, Periwinkle. I estimate that there are 36,000 high schools in the US (without even considering foreign schools) and yet 5% of Harvard’s class comes from just 7 schools. Broadening opportunities is great. There is probably evidence elsewhere that opportunities are being broadened. Yet each student ought to be evaluated on his/her own merits, in my opinion, and not on an I-am-tired-of-students-from-Andover basis.</p>