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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If you are trying to pick a school and looking at their college admissions- don't. because the legacy, minority status etc factors make it too difficult to interpret the results.
Instead: look at the number of nat merit semifinalists for the past 5 years. that will tell you if they have good teaching and smart kids. if your child is smart and hard working and can benefit from the teaching then pick that school-  then when you are at the school, find out where the smartest kids are legacies and DONT apply there early, because it will be hard to compete with the legacy . at ncs 2 girls who were minority and legacy and NOT in the top 20% for grades in the class still got into harvard. so that gives you some idea. legacy matters.
[/quote]

Don't do this - don't pick the school with the highest NMSSFs.

The # of NMSSFs tells you very little about the teaching at the school, and there's no special sauce that will turn your kid into an NMSSF. Any podunk school can teach the pre-calc, english and vocabulary that are on the SAT, and if the school can't teach this, a good prep company can. The # of NMSSFs just tells you that the school screens for high SSATs and SATs for middle and high school admissions, so for this reason you might be right about the smart peer group (although there are other things to look for in a peer group, but that's a different thread). It also tells you that the school has a pretty high average income, because NMSSF is associated with income. It also tells you that families can afford good prep classes.

So if you pick the school with the highest # of NMSSFs, -- your kid will just be competing against all these other NMSSFs, who were NMSSF material before they got to the school. Sort of like sending your kid to a school with a lot of legacies. [/quote]

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