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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Do ivy league colleges accept students from Wakefield who perform lower than the top area schools but are top performers in Wakefield?[/quote]

Admissions officers deal with this question every day. How does a top student from school A compare with a top student from school B? Is a top student from school A more comparable to a mid-level student at school B?

The answer is that admissions officers have a wealth of information about high schools across the country, at least the ones from which they receive a good number of applications. E.g., they have data on the relationship between test scores and GPA at different high schools, which tell them that some high schools have high grade inflation, so GPAs from those schools might be deflated or discounted. They have data on how enrolled students from different high schools perform at their own college/university, so they can see over time that a high GPA from school A doesn't translate to high performance at their college, while even solid B students from school B are well prepared for college and perform well there.

The answer is, given the number of applicants to Ivy League schools from Arlington and from the DC area generally, admissions officers have a very good idea whether or not top performers at Wakefield compare well with top performers at Yorktown and HB and W-L (and for that matter, with top performers at Wilson and McLean and Walter Johnson and Sidwell and on and on). I think it would be a mistake to view any Ivy League acceptance from any high school in this area as a "fluke" or as evidence of lowered standards due to affirmative action or whathaveyou. Admissions officers are not infallible. But they are also not stupid or naive, nor are they lacking information about schools and students in this area.

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