Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
New Trier in the very wealthy north shore burbs of Chicago, I'm guessing. PP has bragged about her high school before. It's like 3,500+ students, no diversity. Avg ACT is 28 -- I'd est. TJ's avg ACT is 30.

Closer to 4,500 students nowadays. Oh, and this:
http://newtrier.k12.il.us/audiences/seniors/graduation/graduation_attire/

Anonymous wrote:
New Trier in the very wealthy north shore burbs of Chicago, I'm guessing. PP has bragged about her high school before. It's like 3,500+ students, no diversity. Avg ACT is 28 -- I'd est. TJ's avg ACT is 30.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks similar to the data from my public HS in the Midwest. I'm not that impressed.

Curious, what Midwest public school sends 55 kids to the Ivys and more than 1/3 of the class to top 25 colleges?

New Trier in the very wealthy north shore burbs of Chicago, I'm guessing. PP has bragged about her high school before. It's like 3,500+ students, no diversity. Avg ACT is 28 -- I'd est. TJ's avg ACT is 30.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe it's the fact that admission to these colleges is becoming more and more like a lottery and more kids are applying to more colleges hoping that more tickets will increase their chances of winning. Instead of applying to 5-6 colleges, kids are now applying to 10 or more. It becomes a feedback loop...

Yes but...Demographics don't indicate a spike in US college age population. It's actually steady to declining currently. If a child applies to 12 colleges and gets in to all 12, he/she can only attend 1 of them and the other 11 will have to fill his/her slot with someone else. IMHO the top universities have been successful in increasing their outreach to kids who wouldn't have applied in previous years (foreign students, URMs, 1st gen college students and families in the bottom 25%). My alma mater is one of those schools and its student population is now almost 50% students of color or first gen college. I wonder if less competitive private and state colleges (not the flagships UVA, UMichigan, UTexas, Berkeleys of the world) are seeing a DECLINE in applications.

Interesting question. Also, are the quality of students at the so-called second tiers (not my phrase or belief) rising? Professor friends at Midwest flag ships see the quality of student rising. And state schools (let's VaTech over UVA) I viewed as safeties for my own kids are possibly no longer safeties. The cal state schools (vs the traditionally more difficult to get into U Cal schools) are also becoming much harder to get into. I'm guessing more high priced lacs with small endowments will be taking a hit.

Even with a steady population of HS age Americans, could it be a higher % are actually graduating from HS and a higher % of those are going on to college resulting in a bump in college matriculations combined with the increasing # of foreign students also attending US colleges and universities. And thus former safety schools (like UVA for TJ grads or VaTech for other good VA HS students) are no longer safeties. In the process, the quality of students to many colleges espe 2nd tier schools is increasing as kids who used to be able to get into HYPS get pushed down the chain and so on.

UVA is not a safety school for TJ. A school that rejected 124 TJ students this year is not a safety school.

And accepted what, 240 ish? 75% of TJ kids apply. And some kids, believe it or not, don't apply at all, because they don't want to go. TJ had about a 2/3 acceptance rate last year. If you look at Naviance, UVA is a safety school for the top 1/2 of TJ. WGPA 4.3 with TJ average SATs will safely get you in from TJ unless something very strange is going on with the applicant. Like something that would trigger a negative counselor recommendation. UVA is runs at level to reach, but not out of the question, for the 3rd quartile. The upper end in terms of GPA and SATS will probably get in, and a reach for the lower end. It's a reach for the bottom quartile. A sprinkling get in, but something else probably comes into play to get them there. For UVA, VT Engineering and WM, much more so than other colleges, Naviance shows very consistent results. Most kids from TJ, except maybe those right at the changeover in the third quartile, know with a pretty high degree of certainty how they will fair.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks similar to the data from my public HS in the Midwest. I'm not that impressed.

Curious, what Midwest public school sends 55 kids to the Ivys and more than 1/3 of the class to top 25 colleges?

Anonymous wrote:Bye, PP., my DC is white. And thankful to be at TJ.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting, I graduated from TJ almost two decades ago and I think more than 100 people in my class went to U.Va. I wonder if it's harder to get in now or if more TJ students are turning U.Va down.

UVA and W&M would prefer not to admit applicants from NoVa.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe it's the fact that admission to these colleges is becoming more and more like a lottery and more kids are applying to more colleges hoping that more tickets will increase their chances of winning. Instead of applying to 5-6 colleges, kids are now applying to 10 or more. It becomes a feedback loop...

Yes but...Demographics don't indicate a spike in US college age population. It's actually steady to declining currently. If a child applies to 12 colleges and gets in to all 12, he/she can only attend 1 of them and the other 11 will have to fill his/her slot with someone else. IMHO the top universities have been successful in increasing their outreach to kids who wouldn't have applied in previous years (foreign students, URMs, 1st gen college students and families in the bottom 25%). My alma mater is one of those schools and its student population is now almost 50% students of color or first gen college. I wonder if less competitive private and state colleges (not the flagships UVA, UMichigan, UTexas, Berkeleys of the world) are seeing a DECLINE in applications.

Interesting question. Also, are the quality of students at the so-called second tiers (not my phrase or belief) rising? Professor friends at Midwest flag ships see the quality of student rising. And state schools (let's VaTech over UVA) I viewed as safeties for my own kids are possibly no longer safeties. The cal state schools (vs the traditionally more difficult to get into U Cal schools) are also becoming much harder to get into. I'm guessing more high priced lacs with small endowments will be taking a hit.

Even with a steady population of HS age Americans, could it be a higher % are actually graduating from HS and a higher % of those are going on to college resulting in a bump in college matriculations combined with the increasing # of foreign students also attending US colleges and universities. And thus former safety schools (like UVA for TJ grads or VaTech for other good VA HS students) are no longer safeties. In the process, the quality of students to many colleges espe 2nd tier schools is increasing as kids who used to be able to get into HYPS get pushed down the chain and so on.

UVA is not a safety school for TJ. A school that rejected 124 TJ students this year is not a safety school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Admissions to prestigious schools is not a litmus test for academic success in high school. There are a lot of students whose families can neither qualify for need-based aid, nor pay full price at top 20 schools (none of which award merit aid). Because of this, many or maybe most such students do not even apply to top schools, but instead choose a state school or a lower-ranked school that awards them merit aid.

In the DC metro area, this is a very common situation for families of high achievers.

This. My child just graduated from TJ and is attending an in-state school. We fall into the make too much for need-based aid, but can't afford $70K a year for a private school situation. As a result, my kid only applied to public universities (both in and out of state) that had generous merit aid and strong undergraduate engineering programs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Admissions to prestigious schools is not a litmus test for academic success in high school. There are a lot of students whose families can neither qualify for need-based aid, nor pay full price at top 20 schools (none of which award merit aid). Because of this, many or maybe most such students do not even apply to top schools, but instead choose a state school or a lower-ranked school that awards them merit aid.

In the DC metro area, this is a very common situation for families of high achievers.

This. My child just graduated from TJ and is attending an in-state school. We fall into the make too much for need-based aid, but can't afford $70K a year for a private school situation. As a result, my kid only applied to public universities (both in and out of state) that had generous merit aid and strong undergraduate engineering programs.

Unless your kid is at the absolute top of the applicants (very few, extremely competitive), I don't know of any va publics that offer any merit aid.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Admissions to prestigious schools is not a litmus test for academic success in high school. There are a lot of students whose families can neither qualify for need-based aid, nor pay full price at top 20 schools (none of which award merit aid). Because of this, many or maybe most such students do not even apply to top schools, but instead choose a state school or a lower-ranked school that awards them merit aid.

In the DC metro area, this is a very common situation for families of high achievers.

This. My child just graduated from TJ and is attending an in-state school. We fall into the make too much for need-based aid, but can't afford $70K a year for a private school situation. As a result, my kid only applied to public universities (both in and out of state) that had generous merit aid and strong undergraduate engineering programs.

Anonymous wrote:Admissions to prestigious schools is not a litmus test for academic success in high school. There are a lot of students whose families can neither qualify for need-based aid, nor pay full price at top 20 schools (none of which award merit aid). Because of this, many or maybe most such students do not even apply to top schools, but instead choose a state school or a lower-ranked school that awards them merit aid.

In the DC metro area, this is a very common situation for families of high achievers.