<p>Many CCers claim to go to a “competitive” high school because they are. One way to look at the “competitiveness” of a high school is to look at student ambitions (as someone posted above). Schools with many students striving for top universities are competitive, because a relatively high percentage will go to top universities compared to a normal high school. On CC, this designation is fairly meaningless, though when chancing someone, I always ask just to make sure. Since CCers are obviously aiming for admission into top colleges (not necessarily HYS), nearly all CCers go to a competitive high school.</p>
<p>@shravas: There is no good list for these high schools. I don’t like any of the ones currently floating around. You should look at median or mean SAT scores of previous years of students, percentage of students that go on to college (i believe that if private, it should be around 95+ percent, public 90%), and actual college placement. For example, here is a link to my school, which I consider competitive, though not as much as say, Andover. Notice that the first two quintiles are chock-full of UCs, Ivies, and LACs (once again, not like some elite high schools with numerous Harvard acceptances, but still competitive). UCs are dominant because the school is in CA. Even at the very bottom, there are admissions to UCs (though not Cal, LA, or SD) and the military academies.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.stevensonschool.org/admission/documents/2008%20College%20Acceptances.pdf[/url]”>http://www.stevensonschool.org/admission/documents/2008%20College%20Acceptances.pdf</a></p>