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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][b][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Our college counselor (competitive private north of DMV) says being in top 10% is important, not grades themselves. This tracks with stats of colleges reporting how many students in top 10%. For example, northwestern is something like 98%(?) and Wash U “just” ~86%(?). Just like SAT scores, colleges won’t want to admit kids who will lower their average [/quote]

For high schools that do not rank, how do we know whether kids are in top 10%?  Admission directors repeatedly said they [b]don't compare kids from the same school, b[/b]ut only compare each kid to the reported school profile to understand the rigor and offering.  This is what they meant by holistic review.[/quote]

comparing kid A to the profile (rigor and GPA quartiles are on ours) and comparing kid B to the profile is essentially the same as comparing kid A to kid B. Many top colleges have straight up said they compare kids within the high school first, then the region, then the whole pool.

For the rank Q, if the profile does not make it obvious, ask the head counselor. They will usually tell you the decile and maybe more. Also look at naviance at the very top schools. You can start to see that for the three years listed there are only 5 GPAs above 4.9. Those are the GPAs of very top students. If your kid has a 4.3 and that looks borderline on naviance for UVA in-state, yet you know well over 15% of the class gets in....your kid is not likely in the top 15% but if they have other wow factors could still make it. [/quote]

Of course they compare kids from the same school. They literally evaluate them all from the same school at the same time. I’ve heard that only [b]MIT allows each application to “stand in its own” [/b]which is why getting in there seems random at times. [/quote]

T[b]he admission director of another top school also said that they do not have regional rep and do not evaluate students from the same region or same school together.  They said it is very possible that students from the same school are being evaluated by different admission staffs, and[/b] unless the students raise to the top, the different admission staff may not even know other students from the same school apply.[/quote][/b]

I'm a college counselor. Every college I have ever dealt with has a regional rep.  The readers do the first cull on applications, which then go to regional rep.  Of course, they know which students come from which high school because the very first thing the readers do is pull up the high school profile and review the applicant's course rigor and rank the applicant vis-à-vis the other students from the same high school.  This is how high schools get away with "we don't rank" but knowingly provide the class profile which allows the readers to do it in a minute.  Read Admissions by Jean Hanff Koreitz or any other good book on admissions.[/quote]

IEC here. 
Agree. 
The college reps even know who the "hard teachers" are at each school. They know which LOR make a difference, which ones are generic and which teachers matter......[/quote]

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