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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Back in the day, we were told that Harvard had or was in the process of developing an experience rating for every HS that had sent students to Harvard.  Basically, the goal is (was) to see how well the grades at that particular HS predicted how well their students did once at Harvard -- and the effect would be a customized multiplier for each school which might either be a grade inflator or deflator.

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Which could explain why not every Sidwell valedictorian looks alike to them and some years nobody gets in.  Whereas the deep relationship/special benefit analysis argues against years in which no one from one of these schools gets in to a particular elite university.  [/quote]

This is really interesting, and news to me.  Without criticizing you (I'm thanking you), I want to think about this a bit.  You would expect Harvard (and other colleges that do this) to look at moving averages of kids.  You wouldn't expect them to say to themselves, "we won't take anybody from Sidwell's 2010 graduating class because the Sidwell kids among Harvard's class of 2009 or 2010 wasn't too impressive."  That would give really volatile results, and goes against general rules of analysis.  But this is the sort of thinking you'd need to explain, using this theory, why Harvard took 3-4 (or whatever) kids from Sidwell in 2009, but none in 2010.

Instead, I'd go with the argument that there are other longer-term trends going on as well.  I'd go with something along the lines another poster suggested, that Harvard is offering more money to make it possible for lower- and middle-income families to go there, so the pool of candidates has widened dramatically in the past few years.  If somebody wants, they could fit the school-weights theory in by arguing that Sidwell's kids over the past 5-10 years have been disappointing at Harvard, and we're starting to see this show up in the 2010 numbers, but I tend to doubt that has been the case.

I like the piece of info about weighting schools, though.  I'm still trying to figure out how to fit in in.  It would actually be consistent to argue three things at once:  (1) Harvard's pool of candidates has widened dramatically recently; (2) kids from schools everywhere now have lower chances, but Sidwell kids get a good (or bad, as you wish) weight in the system described above which helps although, like other kids, their chances are still reduced from earlier years; and (3) Sidwell kids also get a boost from the relationship their college counselors have at the Ivies.  These three pieces can actually seem mutually consistent.

Your mileage may vary.  Other interpretations might be as good or better![/quote]

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