Which elite schools emphasize test scores?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A friend just had his son accepted ED at Colorado College with a B- GPA and very high SAT scores. A school out west like that might be a good choice. I think it really depends on your high school. My son's private really does not award very many A's but seems to place kids very well despite nearly no 4.0s.

The schools out west won't be able to distinguish the top privates, from the lesser privates or top publics. To the average college counselor out West, Whitman looks the same or better than HOLTON, Sidwell or NCS.

The schools that most understand and appreciate the top private schools are the Eastern SLACS

I don't know about the "average college counselor", but, having worked in admissions, I can tell you that the staffers at colleges that recruit from high schools across the country know the schools in their regions very well. I'd be willing to bet money that the CC ref for this area knows the curriculum at Whitman, Holton, Sidwell and NCS inside-out.

Agreed. And the Colorado College example is a case on point: a B- kid isn't getting into CC without explanation (including tough private grading).

[Anonymous]

Experienced area reps know the schools in their area. But college admissions offices are seeing a "brain drain" as admission office personnel leave to go into private consulting and other areas. Just this year I've noted that the majority of DMV area reps are very inexperienced. Reps from distant schools are often given 5-8 states and there is no way they know the schools inside and out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Experienced area reps know the schools in their area. But college admissions offices are seeing a "brain drain" as admission office personnel leave to go into private consulting and other areas. Just this year I've noted that the majority of DMV area reps are very inexperienced. Reps from distant schools are often given 5-8 states and there is no way they know the schools inside and out.

+1
True Story: An admissions rep from a prestigious California SLAC mistook “Georgetown Day School” for a school for disadvantaged DC youth and mentioned that she’d be attending the DC College Fair. It’s totally understandable given that her territory covered a bunch of states, but anyone who thinks remote schools will understand the rigor of the top DC private schools as well as the colleges in the NE and SE is kidding themselves. The further you get away from the DC area, the less impressive your private school becomes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Experienced area reps know the schools in their area. But college admissions offices are seeing a "brain drain" as admission office personnel leave to go into private consulting and other areas. Just this year I've noted that the majority of DMV area reps are very inexperienced. Reps from distant schools are often given 5-8 states and there is no way they know the schools inside and out.

+1
True Story: An admissions rep from a prestigious California SLAC mistook “Georgetown Day School” for a school for disadvantaged DC youth and mentioned that she’d be attending the DC College Fair. It’s totally understandable given that her territory covered a bunch of states, but anyone who thinks remote schools will understand the rigor of the top DC private schools as well as the colleges in the NE and SE is kidding themselves. The further you get away from the DC area, the less impressive your private school becomes.

Of course, people choose their private school because they want what they believe is a better education for their children, not because they are seeking an advantage in admission to elite colleges, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Experienced area reps know the schools in their area. But college admissions offices are seeing a "brain drain" as admission office personnel leave to go into private consulting and other areas. Just this year I've noted that the majority of DMV area reps are very inexperienced. Reps from distant schools are often given 5-8 states and there is no way they know the schools inside and out.

+1
True Story: An admissions rep from a prestigious California SLAC mistook “Georgetown Day School” for a school for disadvantaged DC youth and mentioned that she’d be attending the DC College Fair. It’s totally understandable given that her territory covered a bunch of states, but anyone who thinks remote schools will understand the rigor of the top DC private schools as well as the colleges in the NE and SE is kidding themselves. The further you get away from the DC area, the less impressive your private school becomes.

Of course, people choose their private school because they want what they believe is a better education for their children, not because they are seeking an advantage in admission to elite colleges, right?

I'd hope so, because private school likely provides a disadvantage when it comes to college admission. The hope is that the "better education" more than compensates for the disadvantage when it comes to college admissions. In truth, however, some schools (mostly Eastern SLACS) really like students from the prep schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Experienced area reps know the schools in their area. But college admissions offices are seeing a "brain drain" as admission office personnel leave to go into private consulting and other areas. Just this year I've noted that the majority of DMV area reps are very inexperienced. Reps from distant schools are often given 5-8 states and there is no way they know the schools inside and out.

It's a young person's job -- you're on the road a lot and there's not an internal career path up, so there's always been turnover. The GDS story is an example of this, but you can bet that after the college fair gaffe, the rep familiarized him/herself with GDS. (FWIW, my kids don't go there.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Experienced area reps know the schools in their area. But college admissions offices are seeing a "brain drain" as admission office personnel leave to go into private consulting and other areas. Just this year I've noted that the majority of DMV area reps are very inexperienced. Reps from distant schools are often given 5-8 states and there is no way they know the schools inside and out.

It's a young person's job -- you're on the road a lot and there's not an internal career path up, so there's always been turnover. The GDS story is an example of this, but you can bet that after the college fair gaffe, the rep familiarized him/herself with GDS. (FWIW, my kids don't go there.)

The point is that if you are covering 8 eight states on the other side of the country you just aren't going to know every school as well in your few years on the job. California schools, for example, may have a counselor assigned to just one or two California high schools and then also assigned to a handful of eastern states. Most students do best by sticking to schools in their region.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Experienced area reps know the schools in their area. But college admissions offices are seeing a "brain drain" as admission office personnel leave to go into private consulting and other areas. Just this year I've noted that the majority of DMV area reps are very inexperienced. Reps from distant schools are often given 5-8 states and there is no way they know the schools inside and out.

It's a young person's job -- you're on the road a lot and there's not an internal career path up, so there's always been turnover. The GDS story is an example of this, but you can bet that after the college fair gaffe, the rep familiarized him/herself with GDS. (FWIW, my kids don't go there.)

Admissions is serious business and while schools might be required to use comparatively inexperienced reps to cover the country, the top colleges aren’t going to be easily fooled. Many schools have algorithms to determine which high school may practice grade inflation. My alma mater, a very well regarded east-coast private university, assigns each applicants' HS a score from 1 to 5, 5 being most rigor course work/low grade inflation. Plenty of students identified "attending most prestigious public HS" received an unflattering HS score of 2!
Don’t fret. There is a reason the top private schools in this area do so well in college placement with schools east of the Mississippi.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Experienced area reps know the schools in their area. But college admissions offices are seeing a "brain drain" as admission office personnel leave to go into private consulting and other areas. Just this year I've noted that the majority of DMV area reps are very inexperienced. Reps from distant schools are often given 5-8 states and there is no way they know the schools inside and out.

It's a young person's job -- you're on the road a lot and there's not an internal career path up, so there's always been turnover. The GDS story is an example of this, but you can bet that after the college fair gaffe, the rep familiarized him/herself with GDS. (FWIW, my kids don't go there.)

The point is that if you are covering 8 eight states on the other side of the country you just aren't going to know every school as well in your few years on the job. California schools, for example, may have a counselor assigned to just one or two California high schools and then also assigned to a handful of eastern states. Most students do best by sticking to schools in their region.

Admissions reps aren't going to know every school in their territory equally well, but they'll know the ones that consistently produce the most qualified applicants. This is certainly true at the top schools, which are recruiting not just across the country, but around the world. They aren't regional schools and don't want to be perceived that way. Thus, it's easier for the rich man to pass through the eye of a the needle than for a Californian to get into Stanford or a kid from Jersey to get into Princeton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Admissions is serious business and while schools might be required to use comparatively inexperienced reps to cover the country, the top colleges aren’t going to be easily fooled. Many schools have algorithms to determine which high school may practice grade inflation. My alma mater, a very well regarded east-coast private university, assigns each applicants' HS a score from 1 to 5, 5 being most rigor course work/low grade inflation. Plenty of students identified "attending most prestigious public HS" received an unflattering HS score of 2!
Don’t fret. There is a reason the top private schools in this area do so well in college placement with schools east of the Mississippi.

Have to guess that you left out the part about how it varies with whether you took the AP/IB offerings. The 2s would go to the kids who took straight honors classes and no APs.

[Anonymous]

For a lot of these school, for your non-hooked or athlete kid, and not outstanding in some way (except as a great kid), the good standardized scores is probably not enough. Princeton a couple of years ago rejected 1/3 of students who applied with 800-800-800 on the SATs. I've come to see test scores as more of a minimum threshold for the top schools, unless you have something extra.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For a lot of these school, for your non-hooked or athlete kid, and not outstanding in some way (except as a great kid), the good standardized scores is probably not enough. Princeton a couple of years ago rejected 1/3 of students who applied with 800-800-800 on the SATs. I've come to see test scores as more of a minimum threshold for the top schools, unless you have something extra.

Test scores alone will never be enough. But if 2/3 of the applicants with perfect test scores are accepted by Princeton, they must really value those scores. It is worth reaching for schools like that if they are a fit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For a lot of these school, for your non-hooked or athlete kid, and not outstanding in some way (except as a great kid), the good standardized scores is probably not enough. Princeton a couple of years ago rejected 1/3 of students who applied with 800-800-800 on the SATs. I've come to see test scores as more of a minimum threshold for the top schools, unless you have something extra.

Test scores alone will never be enough. But if 2/3 of the applicants with perfect test scores are accepted by Princeton, they must really value those scores. It is worth reaching for schools like that if they are a fit.

There is no way that Princeton admits 2/3 of the applicants with a "perfect" GPA and that sort of proves the point about test scores being more important than GPA. Standardized test results are still the gold standard for an apples to apples comparison of applicants. College admissions officers are intellectuals themselves, and they tend to value intellect in their applicants. For this reason they are more likely to dismiss less-than-desirable grades when accompanied by a high test score. A low test score, on the other hand, will throw a high GPA into doubt.

[Anonymous]

The schools out west won't be able to distinguish the top privates, from the lesser privates or top publics. To the average college counselor out West, Whitman looks the same or better than HOLTON, Sidwell or NCS.

I don't know that this is true. I went to one of those SLACs "out west" and while the bay area, Seattle, and the LA are were definitely overrepresented relative to an east coast SLAC, people were from all over the place. There were plenty of people from NYC, Chicago, Boston, DC, and other large non-west Coast cities. I grew up in the Chicago area and attended a well regarded suburban high school, and the admissions dean said that he was aware of my school, in part because there are several schools from each major metropolitan area that almost every year have several applicants and are known for having rigorous curriculums. It is a relatively small, privileged pool of people who have the financial means and academic preparation/guidance to apply to small private liberal arts schools all over the country. Of course, not everyone comes from that background, and I also had friends from college who came from working class backgrounds, or went to non top-notch schools, but I would say privilege is certainly over-represented. A far larger portion of people at any reasonably selective SLAC are going to come from top suburban districts, top magnets (especially NYC magnets like Styvusant and so on), top prep day schools (Dalton and the like at NYC, GDS or Sidwell in DC, University of Chicago lab in Chicago, etc.), and NE boarding schools (Choate, Exeter, etc.) than the general population (or even the population of a state school). The point is--they are pretty familiar with this relatively tiny pool of schools that continually have students applying year after year, especially when the school is located far away.

The world of people who attend small, well regarded SLACs and other private colleges (even "out west") is an insular bubble. For example, one of my best friends from college has a twin sister. My friend went to a SLAC on the west coast and her twin sister went to a SLAC on the east coast. Her sister dated a guy in high school who went at MIT. My best friend from high school went to MIT, and ended up dating my college friend's sister's ex. Also, she became really good friends with a high school friend of mine, who went to a different east coast SLAC through a mutual friend from high school. We're not even talking about ivy networks--just your average SLAC.

So if you're looking at Reed, Occidental, Pomona, Colorado College, or Claremont McKenna, and you think that college admissions people are oblivious to the reputations of Sidwell or Holton or whatever, think again. Same goes for Carleton, Oberlin, Macalester, and Kenyon. The landscape of high quality colleges and universities is not nearly as regional or provincial as people on DCUM seem to think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Experienced area reps know the schools in their area. But college admissions offices are seeing a "brain drain" as admission office personnel leave to go into private consulting and other areas. Just this year I've noted that the majority of DMV area reps are very inexperienced. Reps from distant schools are often given 5-8 states and there is no way they know the schools inside and out.

It's a young person's job -- you're on the road a lot and there's not an internal career path up, so there's always been turnover. The GDS story is an example of this, but you can bet that after the college fair gaffe, the rep familiarized him/herself with GDS. (FWIW, my kids don't go there.)

The point is that if you are covering 8 eight states on the other side of the country you just aren't going to know every school as well in your few years on the job. California schools, for example, may have a counselor assigned to just one or two California high schools and then also assigned to a handful of eastern states. Most students do best by sticking to schools in their region.

Admissions reps aren't going to know every school in their territory equally well, but they'll know the ones that consistently produce the most qualified applicants. This is certainly true at the top schools, which are recruiting not just across the country, but around the world. They aren't regional schools and don't want to be perceived that way. Thus, it's easier for the rich man to pass through the eye of a the needle than for a Californian to get into Stanford or a kid from Jersey to get into Princeton.

Exactly. In fact, contrary to the bolded statement above, students often do better NOT sticking to schools in their region.