Although there are elite high schools that don’t rank, there are still many that do.
I have always wondered about what happens to kids who end up with extremely low class rankings (ie bottom 10%), at very elite High Schools. Do colleges simply disregard class rank when they look at those student’s apps? What happens to those kids? After all, many students at those schools, even if they are at a lower rank, are still usually incredibly smart.
I have no experience with such things and I have found little information through google about it.
Anyone here have a hypothesis or information regarding it?
I would think they mostly still attend four-year colleges right after high school, but not particularly selective ones. At regular high schools, students in the bottom 10% generally don’t go to college.
I don’t know but am about to find out. Why my child’s test-in interview-in public and nationally ranked school uses class rank and won’t weight classes as honors is beyond me. If I had to do it over, child would be at a different high school and would have a much higher gpa and rank. I think the position means she will miss out on scholarships. I think it will end up costing us $80k in potential scholarships and some admittances (especially auto-admits) because of the policy. I know people might say she could have earned As at the current school like others did, but I’ve seen her work and it would have been A/top quartile at another school. The price of swimming in the more academically elite pool is coming due and I’m not sure it has been worth it.
As a graduate of one of these HS’s, from my experience, they go to college. They mostly go to 4-year universities, obviously not HYPMS, but not Northwest State College either. I would not worry about them; that generally turn out OK.
Some go to lower ranked colleges. Elite public kids or families that spent their money on tuition at elite private may opt for the child to go to a satellite state school. That’s what one of my siblings did, who for some unknown reason spent their savings on an elite boarding school, that and an expensive but uber-posh competitive sport for one of them, and then her kids “couldn’t afford” to attend anything but their state school, which was fine, but the grades weren’t good enough for the flagship. It was off to the satellite campus for them.
In nyc many of the elite public hs kids are also low income and immigrants/ first generation in this country. If they miss the HYP cut off in grades, several opt to go to CUNY and graduate debt-free and spend their money on grad school. As one smarty pants who was attending CUNY City College engineering told me, It’s only undergrad.
Depends on how you define elite. At boarding school’s like Andover, or private high schools like Dalton, 100% go on to 4 year colleges and you would be hard pressed to find more than a few who go to colleges not ‘ranked’ in the top 100. Despite not being top of their class, these kids still have received an outstanding education, and colleges believe they will be well prepared due to the rigor and content of the curriculum.
At an ‘elite’ school, even the bottom kids would have likely taken calculus, physics and multiple yrs of language as well as knowing how to write a good critical essay. They are all on the ‘college track’
You can take a look at the college placement for some of these schools and see the matriculation data- impressive
At our school, the bottom 10% go to 4-year universities, almost always private, and generally pretty decent ones at that. Obviously not top-ranked schools, but on last year’s list, there were only two I saw that were “eh.” *
*Can’t say for sure, but I’m well aware that some of this might have to do with $$.
Just for giggles, I went back to see where my class went. So confirming what I said earlier, combined with the comment above, most of the class went to private 4-year colleges and universities, a few went to art schools and conservatories.The few that went to publics all went to flagships.
I’ve said many times on this forum, but at every HS, including Andover/Exeter/Stuyvesant/TKHSST and the ilk, 50% of the class will graduate in the bottom half of the class. They still all do well in the college admissions process and in life in general.
I can’t say about bottom ranked but ones who were in top 50% of our high performing high rigor school, all of them got into decent schools and did better than most top students of not so rigrous highschools. They were used to hard work and took rigorous courses so even though they didn’t make top 1% or straight A’s, they were very well prepared for rigor and competition of colleges. Another advantage they had was being used to big campus and large student body so they were socially poised as well.
If the prep school is truly well known to colleges then the kids are getting a great education and even those towards the bottom of the class make excellent college students and they will be wanted by some great colleges. Most of the “lower tier” of my D’s school did very well and landed at colleges that routinely sit towards the bottom half of the top 50 in the US News ranking (for what that’s worth).
IMO a bigger problem at some of those schools is that the PARENTS have incredibly high, unrealistic expectations about college results just by virtue of having a child at a top high school. At least from what I’ve experienced. The kids probably do just fine in the long run.
98% of the kids from our kids’ private prep HS went to 4 year Us. 1 or 2 had gap years and 2 started at local CCs. Our D was one of those who went to CC–she then transferred into a very selective private U where she graduated in her dream major, cinema.
My children go to one of those public schools that’s consistently ranked among the top five or ten in the country (excluding selective-admission high schools), where 100% of graduates attend four-year colleges. The bottom half does VERY well with college admissions. Rollins, James Madison, Virginia Tech, U Delaware, U Vermont, Drexel, SUNY Albany, SUNY New Paltz, Gettysburg, Susquehanna, Indiana U. I’ve even seen Tulane.