Reply to Most Prestigious Private HS In US Suffers Elite College Matriculation Decline, Parents/Admins Reeling

Forum Index » Private & Independent Schools

Reply to "Most Prestigious Private HS In US Suffers Elite College Matriculation Decline, Parents/Admins Reeling"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We all know the public school kids who look disadvantaged but are actually wealthy get the advantage in college admissions.

Public schools are less competitive environments with no admission requirements, rampant grade inflation, and meaningless class rank largely based on weighted GPAs that are actually just ranking kids based on the number of honors and AP courses they take.

Becoming valedictorian in public school is often the easiest path to an Ivy.[/quote]

You mean class rank 1, not the person who gives a speech.
A hugh portion of school districts don't even have class rank, and there are 26,000 high schools and each ivy decides admissions independently for ~2000 seats. [/quote]

Please look up the definition of valedictorian, it means class rank 1.

A huge portion of public school districts are underperforming and completely worthless.

If you take into account the overall number of applications and acceptances rather than just matriculations, from public school valedictorians, yes it is absolutely the easiest path to an ivy.[/quote]

I don't quite know what this is getting at.

If you look at Title 1 public school (63% of all public schools) valedictorian matriculations, the number going to an Ivy school is next to nothing.

I would agree it is an easy path for the 38% non-Title 1...but almost no poor school valedictorians are attending Ivy schools.

Also, if you literally are talking about the #1 kid in the class, at the 38% non-Title 1 schools it's not easy to be #1.  The smartest kid at Sidwell probably won't be #1 at Whitman, not because they can't but likely because that is not their focus in life.[/quote]

It is easy to be #1 in public school due to minimal competition, grade inflation, and how weighted GPAs are calculated.  You just take the most honors / AP classes and that is usually enough because getting As is not hard.  There is no rigor.

I attended one of the HYPs and the classmates who struggled the most with coursework were the public school graduates, usually valedictorians.  They were not prepared for the college coursework that came easy to the rest of us, average private high school graduates.

There is no comparison.[/quote]

This is not remotely true. The best students at schools like Whitman, Langley, and the magnets are usually far ahead of their DMV private school counterparts. [/quote]

I wish that were true, but it is the opposite.  I understand the grind these public school kids face, but they are not nearly as prepared for college.[/quote]

Prepared for college really doesn't mean anything...prepared for what exactly?  Even at HYP these days you can easily find classes that meet general requirements where the professor won't assign anything much more than a couple of 3-5 page term papers, and the professor is known for giving nearly the entire class an A.[/quote]

I saw this come up most with the pre-med curriculum and in STEM majors.[/quote]

My kid is a STEM major at HYP as we speak...the upper level classes are dominated by public magnet school kids in both number of kids in the classes and grades.  It's the reverse for the humanities majors since in theory you will have to take some real classes if you intend to major in English vs. just fulfilling an English requirement as a STEM major.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics