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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Where these HS stand with US News has absolutely no bearing on kids getting into college.  Colleges just look at the course rigor and student performance.

In fact, coming from a competitive HS can hurt kids as they stand out less among their classmates.   
[/quote]

"colleges just look at the course rigor"?  
You seriously believe that a college admissions board, with thousands of candidates every year, will look up each candidate HS "course rigor?"  lol.

"coming from a competitive HS can hurt kids"?
Everyone knows TJ (even a college admissions board).  Besides, you just contradicted yourself?  You just said "course rigor" mattered, but now you're arguing that it hurts kids?

It's pretty clear you're making stuff up.[/quote]

No, PP has a point. And, you seem somewhat ignorant on this.

Admissions officers know rigor from school profile, being in MCPS (which top colleges know well, and from counselor survey/rec.

What's more relevant is if there is a history of some kids from the school getting in to the college. That would suggest the school is a known entity to the AO.

She is also correct about competitive high schools. Top colleges don't offer admission to lots of kids from one school.  It's why some private school counselors steer students away from some schools because they know there they will likely get passed over. You bring up TJ,  and it is especially true there.  The kids don't stand out like they would at tgeir home schools because the entire school is magnet, and colleges don't want to take a large amount from one school.

Students really need it all in this admissions climate-- rigor, grades, and some means of standing out in a way that suggests they would bring additional skills/talents the college wants.

The school ranking thing may be a bummer for status reasons,  but I don't think it will seriously affect college admissions. [/quote]

The Imperial Hubris of these statements are deafening. so I decided to test your theory. Although MCPS doesn't publish the official stats for where graduates end up, Bethesda Magazine publishes a mini-version.  You're free to make up your own opinions (just say, "I can't prove it, but I think..."), but I hope you can back up your statements with facts and citations please?

According to the data, both statements you made are not accurate.  A quick glance at the data shows that there are anomalies where a certain college does show a preference for MCPS students (ex. Boston College seems to love BCC students?), but it's on a school-by-school basis whether or not the admissions rates are higher or lower than the school's overall acceptance rate.

I used the "top-4" as examples.

2020: https://bethesdamagazine.com/2020/10/05/college-bound-5/
CalTech 6 of 65 (9.2%)
Harvard 12 of 227 (5.3%)
MIT 14 of 182 (7.7%)
Yale 16 of 260 (6.1%)

2021: https://bethesdamagazine.com/2021/09/06/college-bound-6/
CalTech 10 of 75 (13.3%)
Harvard 7 of 246 (2.8%)
MIT 6 of 170 (3.5%)
Yale 12 of 259 (4.6%)

2022: https://bethesdamagazine.com/2022/09/13/here-are-the-colleges-where-bethesda-area-high-school-grads-applied-got-accepted-and-enrolled/
CalTech 6 of 78 (7.7%)
Harvard 10 of 293 (3.4%)
MIT 11 of 195 (5.6%)
Yale 9 of 280 (3.2%)

The acceptance rates of these schools are:
CalTech: 3.9%
Harvard: 4%
MIT: 4.1%
Yale: 5.3%

What the numbers tell us is that CalTech admissions officers may love MCPS, and MIT might have an extra candidate or two accepted; that's about all that you can say is good about the numbers.  Even CalTech dropped the percentage of MCPS applicants admitted by a significant amount (equivalent to a 40% drop from the prior year), so hopefully that trend won't continue.[/quote]
Wow. You really need to find something else to do when your are bored, because this analysis is really bad. First, BB is reporting admissions, as self reported by students. Who knows the accuracy of that. Second, BB covers an area that is high with legacy admissions for Harvard and Yale, and include the SMCS magnet with higher admissions to CalTech and MIT than the average MCPS high school, precisely because the magnet pulled the highest performing math/science students away from their home school. Third, this is such a small sample size, with such small percentages, that trying to make some broad claim about MCPS declining quality based on a year-to-year % decline in admission to a school that has a very small admission class is just ... SMH ... I can't even express how ridiculous.

Go have some more coffee and find something else to troll about in another forum.[/quote]

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