Does Where I Go To High School Matter?
Level 2 - Admissions 101
Welcome back! As many students continue to finish their application to college,a number of parents who are preparing for their children to apply to college in a few years have other considerations.
One of those considerations that many parents ask is whether it makes any difference where their children attend high school.
There is obviously nuance, but the short answer to this is - Yes, it really does matter where you go to high school, but not for the reasons that you may think.
There are two ways to view a high school decision as a competitive applicant -
A high school increases/decreases your opportunity to attend a given school
A high school increases/decreases your application strength
Let us break that down.
High school increases/decreases your opportunity to attend a given school
An academic profile of a given high school is essentially a record of the school that is provided/available to a college or university.
Imagine a report card for high schools that lets a college know more about the high school you attended.
A strong academic profile (more AP courses, more National Merit Finalists, high graduation rates, etc.) strengthens a student’s strength. It means a 4.0 from a stronger high school is weighted more heavily than a 4.0 from a weaker high school.
But you probably already know this.
What you may not know is that certain schools have propensities to feed into a given college or university at levels much higher than normal.
This goes beyond just going to a strong high school. Certain high schools have been proven to have acceptance rates well above average.
Think about the implication -
Let’s say there is College X. It has a 20% overall acceptance rate.
High School A has a 20% acceptance rate into X.
High School B has a 30% acceptance rate into X.
Assuming High Schools A and B are similar in size and courses, High School B has an easier chance of getting into the same college.
Let that sink in.
A high school increases/decreases your application strength
This may seem like the same paragraph as above, but it is not. Remember, a college or university is not admitting your high school.
They are admitting YOU.
That means that your application has to actually stand out.
College admissions rewards individuals who stand out. That does not mean that you will guaranteed get into your top choice if you are the valedictorian, but the options are a lot better when you are a valedictorian then if you are in the middle of the pack.
To put it another way, you do not want to go to a school where you will get academically crushed.
A lot of parents make this mistake. They assume they should send their children to the best school they can, consequences be damned.
The problem is, if your child is not standing out in the school academically, then you are setting yourself up for a suboptimal outcome. Remember, for several colleges, college rankings and GPA matter. If you are not at the top of your class, you can get hit in the admissions process for not being a competitive applicant.
Specifically, you are setting them up to attend a college or university that the median individual at that high school attends.
That may not make a difference - if you are applying to the University of South Carolina and attend a South Carolina high school, finishing in the middle of the pack is probably good enough to still attend the college.
But if you are hearing typical college outcomes and thinking that is not for you, then you need to make sure that you are in a position to absolutely dominate the high school environment.