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[quote=Anonymous]If you want to investigate matriculation data, there are better sources than the old WSJ analysis.  As others have pointed out, it looked at just one year quite a while ago, and only at certain colleges.  Also, IIRC, the WSJ interns simply obtained copies of the "freshman face books" from a few friends at those colleges, and counted up the number of high schools listed there.  That leaves a lot of potential error because it depends entirely on the accuracy of the freshman face books.  Here are two other places you can look.  There may be other data sources, but these are the best I've seen.

1. Data from the FAQ - If you follow the link in the FAQ from this forum, you'll see lots of data I pulled together on college matriculation.  I combined the results and methodologies of WSJ and a couple other similarly limited studies, and expanded them to cover many more years.  I also worked hard to include results from a broad range of local high schools.  The results are still limited to just some colleges (14 colleges, I think), so my statistics don't lend themselves to simple claims like "__% Ivy League!" Also, if a particular high school traditionally sends many (or few) students to those covered colleges, that still might affect the results, but less so than it did in WSJ because I covered many years.  It's not totally up-to-date because I haven't had as much time or interest in recent years, but it's relatively current.

2. Matriculationstats.org - A kindred spirit parent from NYC got interested in matriculation stats when one of his children was applying to high schools, so he stated gathering data and calculating statistics.  His website is much more user friendly than mine, and he focuses on metrics like Ivy League and HYPMS, which are attractive and easy to digest.  But he covers fewer DC-MD-VA schools, his time horizons are shorter, and he is a little more out-of-date.  Still, his stuff is great, so I'd definitely look there.

One word of caution - Please don't rely too heavily on the matriculation results in picking a high school.  They are interesting, and perhaps useful, but they are only one comparison point among many.  College matriculation results are only partially reflection of what the school does for its students, and just as much, reflects what the individual students bring to the table regardless of the high school.  How much of the matriculation success can be credited to the school is a question none of us can answer, and the answer probably depends on the particular high school.  Like other data points, they're an interesting proxy, if you keep them in perspective.

Sam2[/quote]

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