How to Overcome Your High School

Level 4 - Highly Selective

Welcome back! Happy new year to all of our readers!

Since we wrote about the role that the high school you attend plays in your admissions decision, we have received questions on what to do if you go to a high school without the best academic profile.

If you missed that article, you can read it here:

The first thing to note is that attending an academically inferior high school is not a death sentence. There are plenty of examples of students who went to Title 1, rural, and/or non-competitive high schools that were accepted to top tier colleges and universities. 

We know because we have seen it first hand. 

Attending a non-competitive high school simply changes the degree of difficulty and the path toward a more selective college or university. 

The below advice is intended to be a more general guideline - there are a number of paths to still be competitive, but based on what we have seen (both through helping individuals apply and get accepted as well as through our own view of data), these are the most common ways to achieve that level of success.

Athletics

We know this is not the most popular thing for us to say, but it has to be said - athletics is one of the easiest ways around a non-competitive academic background. 

Let us explain.

A student can attend the worst academic school in the state. Objectively, obtaining a 4.0 GPA from that school has little merit versus a more competitive high school.