"Top High School"
Hank L. Tomlinson
On Wed, 1 Jan 1997, Bryant wrote:
> If so, what are, say, the top 10 or 20 high schools in the US?
Yes, such rankings do exist. Where to find current ones, I dunno.. I'll
try a NEXIS search later. I can provide a partial, unordered list:
PRIVATE PUBLIC
Phillips Andover (MA) Bronx Science (NY)
Phillips Exeter Stuyvesant (NY)
Harvard-Westlake (CA) Thomas Jefferson (VA)
Groton (CT) New Trier (IL)
Choate (CT) Glenbrook North (IL)
St. Pauls (NH) North Carolina Sci & Math (NC)
Head-Royce (CA)
St. Marks (TX)
Westminster (GA)
I don't remember any more...
best,
hank
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
710-K South LaSalle St * Durham NC 27705 * 919-383-9409
first year graduate student, Duke University Dept of Psychology
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bryant
I've noticed a lot of people in here saying they go to a "top high
school in the state" or a "very selective high school" or
the "best/toughest/intense school in the area."
What I'm wondering if this has an validity? Are these people actually
telling the truth? Is there a place where I can find
info on high schools and where my school ranks? Are high schools ranked
in general? If so, what are, say, the top 10 or
20 high schools in the US?
Another thing I'm wondering is how much the prestige or notability of
your high school affects admissions. If your
school in nationally known and recognized for it's academic rigor or
whatever, does that increase your chances to making
it into a selective school? Does your school factor in at all?
Jose Torres
It sure helps if you go to Exeter, Andover, or Groton.
Jose =)
Graham Robinson
Bryant <wuta...@earthlink.net> wrote in article
<5aetjn$a...@bolivia.earthlink.net>...
> I've noticed a lot of people in here saying they go to a "top high
> school in the state" or a "very selective high school" or
> the "best/toughest/intense school in the area."
>
> What I'm wondering if this has an validity? Are these people actually
> telling the truth? Is there a place where I can find
> info on high schools and where my school ranks? Are high schools ranked
> in general? If so, what are, say, the top 10 or
> 20 high schools in the US?
High schools may be ranked, but here are two observations about this
stuff:
1) [Comes from having worked in politics for three years]: local school
boards generally play fast and loose with the facts to improve their
reputation among parents. This is because there is an axiom in state
politics that the state never criticize the school board of a town or other
small community (it's fine to criticize education boards in cities). Lots
of schools that are very good, lay claim to being "one of the best in the
country."
2) This is reinforced by college admissions. In general, if a student
brags about their college during any direct contact with the admissions
officer, the admissions officer will generally reinforce the student's view
-- even if he/she has never heard of the high school. "Oh yeah, that's a
great school." It's because admissions officers are trying to leave a
favorable impression with students, and it really doesn't matter to them if
the student is right in their opinion of their own high school.
3) Public secondary schools have the task of educating all students.
Preparing their best students for the Ivy League isn't their only job. How
good a public secondary school is depends on how well they educate
everyone, whatever that individuals goals and abilities (or disabilities)
are. This would be fairly impossible to rank.
> Another thing I'm wondering is how much the prestige or notability of
> your high school affects admissions. If your
> school in nationally known and recognized for it's academic rigor or
> whatever, does that increase your chances to making
> it into a selective school? Does your school factor in at all?
Colleges certainly adjust for different schools. But how that school
"ranks," or even alone how "good" they perceive the school to be is not the
basis on which colleges adjust. Standardized tests are one way students
are compared between different schools. Colleges also examine average
scores for your entire school. Finally, where I went to college (and I
believe at a lot of colleges), the admissions office keeps a database of
everyone whom it has ever accepted. They know that of students from your
high school, how they have done once they get to the college.
So, for example, if a college accepted several students from your high
school, and they went on to do well at that college, then in the future
students from that school would have a significantly better chance of
getting in. Moreover, they know what happened to the couple of people
they've accepted with slightly lower GPAs. If they did not do well in
college, then the doors will close for similar students in that high
school.
What is important to colleges, in adjusting, is not how "good" or how
"hard" your high school is, but how well its alumni do in the college in
question. A comment from my experience in an admissions office: there are
a few very strong high schools whose students tend to just not work very
hard when they get to college. Despite those students having gone to a
good high school, they face significantly longer odds to get in to many
colleges.
Also remember that most colleges consider themselves to be more rigorous
than your high school, no matter what kind of school you went to. There is
a general presumption that, no matter how good your high school, if you
were unable to really excel there than you definitely won't be able to
excel in college.
Best,
Graham Robinson
--------------
drob...@law.harvard.edu
Paul Eremenko
Bryant (wuta...@earthlink.net) wrote:
: I've noticed a lot of people in here saying they go to a "top high
: school in the state" or a "very selective high school" or
: the "best/toughest/intense school in the area."
: What I'm wondering if this has an validity? Are these people actually
: telling the truth? Is there a place where I can find
: info on high schools and where my school ranks? Are high schools ranked
: in general? If so, what are, say, the top 10 or
: 20 high schools in the US?
Well, my school likes to compare PSAT scores statewide (as well as
other standardized tests). Naturally, they come out on top. I am sure
if some other criterion was used, however, the picture would change
drastically.
A much more reliable indicator, IMHO, is the percentage of students
that go on to 4-year colleges.
: Another thing I'm wondering is how much the prestige or notability of
: your high school affects admissions. If your
: school in nationally known and recognized for it's academic rigor or
: whatever, does that increase your chances to making
: it into a selective school? Does your school factor in at all?
Well, all the schools I applied to say that they do not rank high schools.
However, it seems to me there's a variety of other methods of keeping
track of which schools are exceptional without actually ranking them.
I think that alumni success and the number of other applicants to the
school (both this and in the past years) with respect to class size
both play a role. I am not an expert in the field, of course.
--Paul.
-----
Paul Eremenko
e...@expert.cc.purdue.edu -*- erem...@wl.k12.in.us -*- erem...@cc.purdue.edu
Yeechang Lee
Hank L. Tomlinson <ha...@acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
> Yes, such rankings do exist. Where to find current ones, I dunno.. I'll
> try a NEXIS search later. I can provide a partial, unordered list:
[...]
> PUBLIC
> Bronx Science (NY)
> Stuyvesant (NY)
[...]
The list may be unordered, but thou didst truly speak truly by putting
Science first and, more importantly, ahead of Stuy.
Seriously, another one that comes to mind immediately: Boston Latin
(MA).
Yeechang, Science '91
--
http://www.columbia.edu/~ylee/
Anonymous
How much is a Blue Ribbon worth?
Red Robin
Okay, here's another log for the fire. Let's say someone went to an out
of the way, "hick" high school, where there wasn't a lot of money for
honors classes and the like. (As a matter of fact, let's say there
weren't any.) But, what if a student *was* working hard and taking the
hardest classes available, considering the situation. I realize that
this is probably not exactly Ivy preparation, but would such a student
have any choice other than Clown U? ;)
Red Robin
<urb...@tir.com.spamBLOCKhereREMOVEtoMAIL>
AsiaSunset
>>Seriously, another one that comes to mind immediately: Boston Latin
(MA).<<
Yup! That's where Patrick Ewing learned to shoot his jump hook.
Graham Robinson
Hank L. Tomlinson <ha...@acpub.duke.edu> wrote in article
<Pine.SOL.3.91.970101...@godzilla3.acpub.duke.edu>...
>
> On Wed, 1 Jan 1997, Bryant wrote:
>
> > If so, what are, say, the top 10 or 20 high schools in the US?
>
> Yes, such rankings do exist. Where to find current ones, I dunno.. I'll
> try a NEXIS search later. I can provide a partial, unordered list:
>
> PRIVATE PUBLIC
> Phillips Andover (MA) Bronx Science (NY)
> Phillips Exeter Stuyvesant (NY)
> Harvard-Westlake (CA) Thomas Jefferson (VA)
> Groton (CT) New Trier (IL)
> Choate (CT) Glenbrook North (IL)
> St. Pauls (NH) North Carolina Sci & Math (NC)
> Head-Royce (CA)
> St. Marks (TX)
> Westminster (GA)
>
If this is from a published ranking, it's a pretty bad one. In my
undergrad's admissions office, some of these schools were thought to be of
significantly different quality -- I mean by that word: as far as
admissions desirability goes.
Ranking high schools is tough business, far tougher than ranking colleges.
To be sure, though, the list would have to be huge. All of the schools on
your list (Groton is in MA, by the way, and Exeter in NH) are very good,
but comparable schools number in the hundreds.
Best,
Graham Robinson
-------------
drob...@law.harvard.edu
ScI 1997
this ranking process may contain only certain criteria as in sat scores,
and the amount of electives, and advanced courses. I think that more or
less these schools have had the greatest sucess in preparing students
going into college, and that should be helpful for colleges
By the way, since Bronx Science was on the list....yay!
ScI 1997 Class '97
Dodge Johnson
: Another thing I'm wondering is how much the prestige or notability of
:your high school affects admissions. If your
: school in nationally known and recognized for it's academic rigor or
:whatever, does that increase your chances to making
: it into a selective school? Does your school factor in at all?
I don't know whether colleges rank high schools, in the sense of putting
them in numerical order on some sort of basis. But they do pay attention
to strength.
Most colleges will dig deeper into the class of a good private school - the
theory being that the school was already selective and they assume that
education is probably better, although that's hard to say.
There are some schools from which top colleges won't even take
validictorians - they are convinced that the school is too weak to have
prepared them well enough to hit the ground running in a rigorous program.
But there are lots of other factors as well.
Colleges will always try to take at least some students from a strong
feeder school, unless they are trying to send some sort of message. For
example, if the guidance counselor seems to be encouraging students to
apply who are weaker than former applicants, they may take none that year -
the message being 'pick up the quality if you want to do business with us.'
And when a college has beds to fill, it will probably do so from high
schools that don't routinely send them applicants - they don't want to send
a message to a feeder school that they'll take kids of lesser quality than
previously.
Top colleges may dig deeper into the class of a powerhouse high school -
but they are going to try and keep the numbers they admit reasonably
consistent from year to year. They'll also make exceptions and admit more
or fewer on occasion.
It's a great game. And it's an area where colleges and schools are the
players and students are the pieces on the board.
Dodge
Dodge Johnson
Educational Consultant
Mr. Sandman
It really impresses the admissions staff at a college if write down
your high school zip code as "90210".
Bruce
Mr. Sandman wrote:
>
> It really impresses the admissions staff at a college if write down
> your high school zip code as "90210".
Ironically, Beverly Hills High isn't even in 90210 (it's in 90209).
rmc...@acsu.buffalo.edu
I found the following dissertation abstract a year ago, and this study
gives top honors to 26 particular public high schools. Read it, and
decide for yourself. (Abstract from Dissertation Abstracts Internation-
al)
______________ ______________ ______________ ______________
Complete record
___Citation 2
Author
Blumenthal, Shelley Marten .
Title
PREPARING THE PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENT FOR HIGHLY
SELECTIVE COLLEGE ADMISSION (COLLEGE ADMISSION).
Source
Dissertation Abstracts International. Volume: 54-12, Section:
A, page: 4358.
Abstract
Typical public secondary school students seem unable to compete
with distinguished public and elite private secondary school
students when seeking admission to highly selective colleges.
This study has identified the characteristics that distinguish
college guidance and school-wide programs at public secondary
schools perceived to be the strongest (distinguished) from
other public secondary schools.
Guidance directors at 26 distinguished public secondary schools
were mailed, and asked to complete and return a College
Guidance Questionnaire to identify school-wide characteristics
and programs at their respective schools. In addition, the
questionnaire identified college guidance activities that help
to facilitate admission of their students to highly selective
colleges.
(1) The 26 distinguished public secondary schools nominated
most frequently by the 33 respondent highly selective colleges
were (* = top three): (A) Benjamin Franklin H.S. (CA); (B)
Bethesda Chevy Chase H.S. (MD); (C) Beverly Hills H.S. (CA);
(D) Central H.S. (AR); (E) Cherry Creek H.S. (CO); (F) Clayton
H.S. (MO); (G) Evanston Township H.S. (IL); (H) Henry M. Gunn
H.S. (CA); (I) Horace Greeley H.S. (NY); (J) Hume-Fogg Academic
H.S. (TN); (K) *Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy; (L)
Lexington H.S. (MA); (M) Lincoln H.S. (OR); (N) Louisiana
School for Mathematics, Science, and the Arts; (O) Millburn
H.S. (NJ); (P) Mountain Brook H.S. (AL); (Q) *New Trier
Township H.S. (IL); (R) North Carolina School for Science and
Mathematics; (S) Palo Alto H.S. (CA); (T) Scarsdale H.S. (NY);
(U) Stuyvesant H.S. (NY); (V) Sunny Hills H.S. (CA); (W)
*Thomas Jefferson H.S. for Science and Technology (VA); (X)
University H.S. (AZ); (Y) Walt Whitman H.S. (MD); (Z) White
Station H.S. (TN).
(2) The characteristics of the distinguished public secondary
schools that help to facilitate admission of their students to
highly selective colleges include: (A) a mean per pupil
expenditure of $7,685; (B)~a mean student to counselor ratio of
261 to one (excluding New Trier's Adviser System, the half-time
college counselor at Benjamin Franklin, and the six part-time
grade advisers at Stuyvesant); (C)~students remain with the
same counselor throughout secondary school; (D)~guidance
directors with administrative responsibilities and limited or
nonexistent counseling assignments; (E)~sufficient support
staff---secretaries, registrars, and paraprofessionals;
(F)~Advanced Placement (AP) programs with a mean of eighteen AP
courses per school; (G)~an evening panel of college admissions
officers---including representation from highly selective
colleges---to provide information about the college admissions
process and to field questions. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).
_________________________________________________________________
______________ ______________ ______________ ______________
On Wed, 1 Jan 1997, Bryant wrote:
> I've noticed a lot of people in here saying they go to a "top high
> school in the state" or a "very selective high school" or
> the "best/toughest/intense school in the area."
>
> What I'm wondering if this has an validity? Are these people actually
> telling the truth? Is there a place where I can find
> info on high schools and where my school ranks? Are high schools ranked
> in general? If so, what are, say, the top 10 or
> 20 high schools in the US?
>
> Another thing I'm wondering is how much the prestige or notability of
> your high school affects admissions. If your
> school in nationally known and recognized for it's academic rigor or
> whatever, does that increase your chances to making
> it into a selective school? Does your school factor in at all?
>
>
_____________________________________________________________________________
____
\ / R. John McCaw * Department of Modern Languages and Literatures
\/ State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York 14260
Matthew L. Bleich
In <5aetjn$a...@bolivia.earthlink.net> Bryant <wuta...@earthlink.net>
writes:
>I've noticed a lot of people in here saying they go to a "top high
>school in the state" or a "very selective high school" or
> the "best/toughest/intense school in the area."
>
> What I'm wondering if this has an validity? Are these people actually
>telling the truth? Is there a place where I can find
> info on high schools and where my school ranks? Are high schools
ranked
>in general? If so, what are, say, the top 10 or
> 20 high schools in the US?
>
> Another thing I'm wondering is how much the prestige or notability of
>your high school affects admissions. If your
> school in nationally known and recognized for it's academic rigor or
>whatever, does that increase your chances to making
> it into a selective school? Does your school factor in at all?
Here are some college placement statistics for the Choate class of '96
(of approx. 250 students):
First Quintile Second Quintile Enrolled
(avg. SAT 701-V 710-M (647-V 677-M)
G.P.A. 3.58+) 3.28 - 3.57
applied, accepted accepted, applied
Brown 11 of 27 1 of 15 6
UChicago 2 of 2 2 of 4 2
Columbia 5 of 13 3 of 13 3
Cornell 14 of 14 6 of 11 13
Duke 3 of 9 1 of 7 2
Georgetown 12 of 13 6 of 14 10
Harvard 7 of 23 2 of 14 6
Johns Hopkins 7 of 8 5 of 7 7
Michigan 3 of 3 5 of 8 0
Middlebury 3 of 5 3 of 6 4
MIT 1 of 5 2 of 4 3
Northwestern 5 of 8 2 of 8 0
Penn 4 of 12 5 of 12 7
Princeton 3 of 13 0 of 14 4
Stanford 6 of 14 2 of 8 6
Swarthmore 3 of 4 0 of 3 2
Tufts 9 of 12 11 of 19 4
Tulane 2 of 2 6 of 6 4
Williams 3 of 8 1 of 5 2
Yale 9 of 21 0 of 9 5
_____________________________
Matt Bleich
mbl...@ix.netcom.com
Choate '97
Gary Glen Price
> Matthew L. Bleich <mbl...@ix.netcom.com> wrote: Here are some college
> placement statistics for the Choate class of '96 (of approx. 250 students):
Were there no applicants to Amherst?
Gary Glen Price
ggp...@facstaff.wisc.edu
Sam D.
Bryant (wuta...@earthlink.net) wrote:
: I've noticed a lot of people in here saying they go to a "top high
: school in the state" or a "very selective high school" or
: the "best/toughest/intense school in the area."
A college application is generally read first by an admissions officer who
is familiar with the applicant's geographic area and the schools there.
The admissions people therefore have some idea of the quality of the
curriculum, and of the students they have previously accepted from the
school. Now, if you happen to go to Andover or Exeter, and have
essentially the same credentials as someone from XXX HS, you would get in
first. But the influence of this factor isn't as great when dealing with
two XXX HS's. The college will generally see how well the applicant has
taken advantage of the resources available to him/her.
--Sam
--
Sam Dwarakanath pool player musician
WHRHS, class of 1997 weightlifter martial artist
Duke University, class of 2001 tennis player card shark
http://mars.superlink.net/voyager/
Scott
rmc...@acsu.buffalo.edu wrote:
>
> (1) The 26 distinguished public secondary schools nominated
> most frequently by the 33 respondent highly selective colleges
> were (* = top three): (A) Benjamin Franklin H.S. (CA); (B)
> Bethesda Chevy Chase H.S. (MD); (C) Beverly Hills H.S. (CA);
> (D) Central H.S. (AR); (E) Cherry Creek H.S. (CO); (F) Clayton
> H.S. (MO); (G) Evanston Township H.S. (IL); (H) Henry M. Gunn
> H.S. (CA); (I) Horace Greeley H.S. (NY); (J) Hume-Fogg Academic
> H.S. (TN); (K) *Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy; (L)
> Lexington H.S. (MA); (M) Lincoln H.S. (OR); (N) Louisiana
> School for Mathematics, Science, and the Arts; (O) Millburn
> H.S. (NJ); (P) Mountain Brook H.S. (AL); (Q) *New Trier
> Township H.S. (IL); (R) North Carolina School for Science and
> Mathematics; (S) Palo Alto H.S. (CA); (T) Scarsdale H.S. (NY);
> (U) Stuyvesant H.S. (NY); (V) Sunny Hills H.S. (CA); (W)
> *Thomas Jefferson H.S. for Science and Technology (VA); (X)
> University H.S. (AZ); (Y) Walt Whitman H.S. (MD); (Z) White
> Station H.S. (TN).
I personally find this report laughable. There are plenty of schools on
the same level as these.
The most notable exception seems to be Bronx Science. All rivalries
aside, can one say that Stuy is one of the best but Bronx Science isn't?
And the whole top high school issue is moot. Except for a lower class
rank, there shouldn't be a problem if you go to a no-name local high
school. Just becuase a student goes to Anytown H.S. doesn't mean he's
stupid. Maybe his or her district doesn't have a great high school.
It's what you do with your education that counts. Of course more Bronx
Science or Thomas Jefferson will get in to Harvard; all of them are hard
workers and everyone is smart.
But if you just excel in your high school, even without Honors or AP,
you'll be fine. Take a few college courses during summer and over the
year. Do something that distinguishes you.
Not everyybody can live in Beverly Hills or Scarsdale (which is almost
as expensice as Beverly Hills).
--Scott
Michael K. Tamada
In article <01bbf857$7428e160$6519...@Dell.law.harvard.edu>,
Graham Robinson <drob...@law.harvard.edu> wrote:
[... Good points about difficulties in ranking schools deleted]
>> Another thing I'm wondering is how much the prestige or notability of
>> your high school affects admissions. If your
[...]
> Colleges certainly adjust for different schools. But how that school
>"ranks," or even alone how "good" they perceive the school to be is not the
[...]
> What is important to colleges, in adjusting, is not how "good" or how
>"hard" your high school is, but how well its alumni do in the college in
[...]
An example of this, albeit from a large public university rather
than a highly selective school: the University of Washington
tracks the GPAs of its students and compares them to their high school
GPAs. On this basis, they can figure out if a 3.90 GPA from a certain
high school is really equivalent to a 3.90 from another high school.
However, the UW only uses this information as a small factor, and only
for students who are borderline accept/deny applicants.
The Seattle Times had a couple of interesting articles listing the
HS and UW gpas for several dozen high schools, public and private, in
Washington State. I don't have the exact dates; one was in March 1996
and then in November the Seattle Times had a large, pull-out tabloid
section on high school quality which had updated information.
--Mike Tamada
Occidental College
tam...@oxy.edu
Michael K. Tamada
In article <19970102174...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
Not quite. Patrick Ewing (and also Rumeal Robinson, who went to
UMich and has been a journeyman in the NBA) went to Rindge and Latin, in
neighboring Cambridge, MA. His coach there, Mike Jarvis, I think is
now the coach at George Washington Univ.
I believe that Cambridge Rindge and Latin is a good public school,
but not necessarily one with a national reputation. Boston Latin
however is the "flagship" campus for the Boston School district, and
while perhaps not up there with the New Triers and Stuyvesants of the
country, would not be far behind.
I had a roommate who attended Rindge and Latin for a year while
Ewing was there. She didn't know him at all, but he was easily
recognizable in the hallways; "huge" was her description.
BT
rmc...@acsu.buffalo.edu wrote:
>
> On Tue, 7 Jan 1997, Scott wrote:
>
> > rmc...@acsu.buffalo.edu wrote:
> > I personally find this report laughable. There are plenty of schools on
> > the same level as these.
> >
> > The most notable exception seems to be Bronx Science. All rivalries
> > aside, can one say that Stuy is one of the best but Bronx Science isn't?
>
> When I originally read this abstract, I, too, thought of Bronx Science.
> I also thought of Lowell High School (a selective city school in San
> Francisco) and Gretchen Whitney School (a very small but very selective
> school near Los Angeles).
>
> Apparently, these 26 schools were named most frequently by admissions
> officers at 33 highly selective colleges and universities. It seems
> that the absence of Bronx Science and Lowell may have something to do
> with the likelihood that grads from these schools tend to attend good
> state and local colleges (not among the 33 respondent colleges), and
> it may have something to do with the likelihood that small schools like
> Whitney don't have a lot of graduates to begin with (and thus are not
> frequently represented at the 33 respondent schools), and tend to opt
> for good local schools (who knows if UCLA, Occidental, Pomona, etc.
> were among the respondents?).
>
> >
> > And the whole top high school issue is moot. Except for a lower class
> > rank, there shouldn't be a problem if you go to a no-name local high
> > school. Just becuase a student goes to Anytown H.S. doesn't mean he's
> > stupid. Maybe his or her district doesn't have a great high school.
> > It's what you do with your education that counts. Of course more Bronx
> > Science or Thomas Jefferson will get in to Harvard; all of them are hard
> > workers and everyone is smart.
> >
> > But if you just excel in your high school, even without Honors or AP,
> > you'll be fine. Take a few college courses during summer and over the
> > year. Do something that distinguishes you.
> >
>
> I think there's merit to this argument, but even the best student at
> Anytown H.S. will rarely have the more competitive advantages of schools
> like Palo Alto and New Trier, such as extensive course offerings,
> a well oiled college placement and counselling service, a heavily
> competitive and dynamic academic ethos among the other students,
> heavy community support and interest in academics, numerous academic
> resources in the larger community.
>
> During a talk, the head of admissions at Princeton University once said
> that, in order to get noticed by the admissions officers at elite
> colleges, the Anytown students have to do something that markedly sets
> them apart from their peers; the students from high-reputation schools
> (from Exeter to Scarsdale) do not need as much P.R., as their schools
> are familiar to the admissions officers and are considered academically
> reliable. (During this talk, BTW, this guy-- Dean Hargadon-- mentioned
> New Trier, Palo Alto, and Lowell as examples of such schools.)
>
> Princeton University, as an example, does accept scores of Anytown
> students each year, but the representation from the elite public and
> private schools is predominant. (My conclusion after looking through
> several student "face-books" a couple of years ago, in which students'
> names, hometowns, and high schools were listed beneath mug shots.)
>
> --jon
I go to Lowell High School, and I'll vouch for what you said... thanks
for recognizing what "deserves" to be recognized. I, who started this
thread, was waiting for someone to distinguish my school and now,
someone has. (A little deceitful, but it did the trick and produced some
very constructive conversation.) Keep it comin'... BT :)
J_Gong
rmc...@acsu.buffalo.edu wrote:
>
> I found the following dissertation abstract a year ago, and this study
>
> (1) The 26 distinguished public secondary schools nominated
> most frequently by the 33 respondent highly selective colleges
> were (* = top three): (A) Benjamin Franklin H.S. (CA); (B)
> Bethesda Chevy Chase H.S. (MD); (C) Beverly Hills H.S. (CA);
> (D) Central H.S. (AR); (E) Cherry Creek H.S. (CO); (F) Clayton
--
I believe your data but I can't find Ben Frank H.S. in a database.
J_Gong
Yeechang Lee wrote:
>
> Hank L. Tomlinson <ha...@acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
> > Yes, such rankings do exist. Where to find current ones, I dunno.. I'll
> > try a NEXIS search later. I can provide a partial, unordered list:
>
>
> > PUBLIC
> > Bronx Science (NY)
> > Stuyvesant (NY)
>
> [...]
>
> The list may be unordered, but thou didst truly speak truly by putting
> Science first and, more importantly, ahead of Stuy.
>
> (MA).
>
An attempt has been made for Ca Public High Schools based on SAT scores
alone.
http://www.redshift.com/~jmichael/
Beware of caveats in data...% of students taken SAT, magnum schools,
comparable
economics...
--
{/* Jim Gong
WID, Santa Clara @ Bowers, CA
The opinions expressed here are my own, and not
necessarily represent those of Hewlett-Packard*
/}
Cheggue
In one of the many lists on the lists on this thread, Lexington (MA) High
School came up as one of the better public schools in the US. Although I
was born in Lexington, I currently live in and attend high school at
Bedford, the town next to Lexington. Granted, Lexington may have a high
perecentage of graduates going on to top colleges, but this is because of
more than just a quality education. The school itself is quite large, with
amazing facilities for a town its size, almost all of the AP courses,
teachers who take the time to write recommendations they know will go over
well, and one of the wealthiest tax bases in Massachusetts, willing to pay
whatever it takes to get their children into good colleges. Thus,
understandably, Lexington HS is rated as one of the best in the country.
And this reputation feeds on itself. It is interesting to note that when
the admissions counselor from Stanford came to Boston, he visited
Lexington but not Bedford because a large number of people from Lexington
have gone on to Stanford in recent years. However, resources are not
everything. Bedford High School is certainly above average among schools
in Massachusetts, but in terms of facilities, top-notch teachers,
resources, size, and tax base, it lags considerably far behind Lexington.
However, like Lexington, Bedford contains a number of high tech companies,
which tends to increase the number of students whose parents are seriously
invested in their education. Thus, last year, out of a graduating class of
150, Bedford sent about 25-30 people onto colleges considered to be in top
twenty five or thirty. The point is, it is the investment of the parents
and the students in their educations that matters. As long as the high
school is decent, taking full advantage of the program will get you into a
very good college or university.
Justin Hastings (BHS Class of 1997)
ayc...@earthlink.net
UrbnMntlty wrote:
>
> what about JUNIPERO SERRA HIGH SCHOOL in San Mateo, CA?
Excuse me, but... I don't think Junipero Serra amounts to anything.
We're talking about NATIONAL RECOGNITION here and not localized,
school-spirited recognition. When we all think SF Bay Area or West Coast
and top schools in the US, we think LOWELL HIGH SCHOOL. And then there's
Gunn or some hot-shot school for rich kids in Palo Alto, and some
lesser-known schools in Southern California. So recognize the "BEST,"
and sorry, but serra's in the dust.
Matt Dreier
What do people think of Northfield Mount Hermon in Western Mass.?
UrbnMntlty
joyce
On Tue, 14 Jan 1997 18:51:43 -0800, ayc...@earthlink.net wrote:
>UrbnMntlty wrote:
>>
>> what about JUNIPERO SERRA HIGH SCHOOL in San Mateo, CA?
>
>Excuse me, but... I don't think Junipero Serra amounts to anything.
>We're talking about NATIONAL RECOGNITION here and not localized,
>school-spirited recognition. When we all think SF Bay Area or West Coast
>and top schools in the US, we think LOWELL HIGH SCHOOL. And then there's
>Gunn or some hot-shot school for rich kids in Palo Alto, and some
>lesser-known schools in Southern California. So recognize the "BEST,"
>and sorry, but serra's in the dust.
gee, it looks like someone was a tad upset.
subtlety is a virtue.
joyce
Steve Barthakur
ayc...@earthlink.net wrote:
>
> UrbnMntlty wrote:
> >
> > what about JUNIPERO SERRA HIGH SCHOOL in San Mateo, CA?
>
> Excuse me, but... I don't think Junipero Serra amounts to anything.
> We're talking about NATIONAL RECOGNITION here and not localized,
> school-spirited recognition. When we all think SF Bay Area or West Coast
> and top schools in the US, we think LOWELL HIGH SCHOOL. And then there's
> Gunn or some hot-shot school for rich kids in Palo Alto, and some
> lesser-known schools in Southern California. So recognize the "BEST,"
> and sorry, but serra's in the dust.
No offense but High School, in general, has lost most of its value
regardless of where you go. Let's face it, the only thing a high school
diploma is worth is the ability to market oneself to a competitive
college. In many cases. it's easier to transfer from less competitive
college (with a good portfolio) to a more highly competitive college
than it is to get in from many of these so-called nationally recognized
public high schools.
-S.B.
J_Gong
UrbnMntlty wrote:
>
> what about JUNIPERO SERRA HIGH SCHOOL in San Mateo, CA?
http://www.redshift.com/~jmichael/html/top5096.htm
--
Bruce
J_Gong wrote:
This is one of the most laughable rankings I have seen in a lome, much
worse than the much-maligned U.S. News rankings
First, it only takes into account SAT I scores, which aren't by any
means the only indicator of a school's quality.
Second, it is blatantly wrong. The school with the highest median AND
average SAT scores in California is North Hollywood Highly Gifted
Magnet. The average SAT is nearly 1400, it has had the two AP scholars
from CA for years, and 80% of the class were National Merit
Semifinalists last year. And what about Harvard-Westlake school? More
students from there go to U.S. News Top 50 colleges than from any other
school in CA.
This report is very incomplete. It doens't take into account the fact
that magnet schools are separate from regular schools on the same
campus, and many well-respected high schools are missing from the list.
By the way, in general these kinds of rankings are somewhat unfair. For
some reason, suburban schools in small, wealthy districts are always
ranked better than similarly-funded schools in bigger districts?
Schools like La Canada High and Palo Alto High are always ranked batter
than Los Angeles' El Camino Real High (which won the NATIONAL Academic
Decathalon in 1995 and 1996).
Christine Chiou
che...@aol.com (Cheggue) wrote:
>Granted, Lexington may have a high
>perecentage of graduates going on to top colleges, but this is because of
>more than just a quality education. The school itself is quite large, with
>amazing facilities for a town its size, almost all of the AP courses,
>teachers who take the time to write recommendations they know will go over
>well, and one of the wealthiest tax bases in Massachusetts, willing to pay
>whatever it takes to get their children into good colleges. Thus,
>understandably, Lexington HS is rated as one of the best in the country.
>And this reputation feeds on itself. It is interesting to note that when
>the admissions counselor from Stanford came to Boston, he visited
>Lexington but not Bedford because a large number of people from Lexington
>have gone on to Stanford in recent years.
As a senior at Lexington High School, I can vouch for most of what was
said above. However, a large number of students have NOT gotten into
Stanford in recent years. The rumor is that Stanford rarely accepts
Lexington kids. As far as I know, 2 kids have gone there in the past 4
or 5 years.
>...The point is, it is the investment of the parents and the students in their
>educations that matters. As long as the high school is decent, taking full
>advantage of the program will get you into a very good college or
>university.
>
>Justin Hastings (BHS Class of 1997)
Agreed.
Christine Chiou
cch...@stu.ci.lexington.ma.us
Greg Tseng
Bruce wrote:
>
> from CA for years, and 80% of the class were National Merit
> Semifinalists last year.
From their homepage: "Another example of outstanding achievement is that
20 of the 55 Highly
Gifted Magnet students in the 1996 graduating class are National Merit
Semi-Finalists."
?? 80% ??
--
Greg Tseng <gts...@pen.k12.va.us>
[http://www.tjhsst.edu/~gtseng/]
RST
Just a general question to the people in the know, what, if any, are the
"Top" high schools in the midwest? I know about IMSA, but what
about other schools in Wisconsin, Minnesota, or Iowa (specifically
Wisconsin)? I always thought that my school was pretty good, but when
looking at schools with sat AVERAGES of 1400, I'd have to say that we're
not in the running.
Red Robin
What exactly does it take to get into the NMS finals, or semifinals, for
that matter? I have a selection index of 206 and my combined percentile
is 97 (96V, 95M). Does any knowledgeable person out there know if this
is good/average/mediocre? As far as I know, I did better than most of
my friends, but when you live 'out in the sticks,' that doesn't
necessarily mean a lot.
Thanks for the help.
Red Robin
-------------
<urb...@tir.com.spamMUSTgo>
You know what to do if you want to mail me. Autoresponders need not
apply.
rmc...@acsu.buffalo.edu
More re: "Top High School"
On Sat, 18 Jan 1997, Bruce wrote:
> J_Gong wrote:
>
> > > what about JUNIPERO SERRA HIGH SCHOOL in San Mateo, CA?
> > It is not even in the top 50 within CA itself...check
> >
> > http://www.redshift.com/~jmichael/html/top5096.htm
> >
>
> This is one of the most laughable rankings I have seen in a lome, much
> worse than the much-maligned U.S. News rankings
>
> First, it only takes into account SAT I scores, which aren't by any
> means the only indicator of a school's quality.
>
> Second, it is blatantly wrong. The school with the highest median AND
> average SAT scores in California is North Hollywood Highly Gifted
> Magnet. The average SAT is nearly 1400, it has had the two AP scholars
> from CA for years, and 80% of the class were National Merit
> Semifinalists last year. And what about Harvard-Westlake school? More
> students from there go to U.S. News Top 50 colleges than from any other
> school in CA.
Actually, North Hollywood HGM is not a school; it is a program _within_
a school. It is an adjunct of North Hollywood Sr. High, and as such it
is not completely separate (academically, socially, athletically, etc.)
from its parent institution. I don't doubt the Magnet students are
really awesome; I read that at least a 145 IQ is required to get in,
and the students are given opportunities not available to the general
students of NHSH. But the Magnet is still a program (of approximately
200 students) within a larger school (of over 1000 students).
By the way, isn't Harvard-Westlake a private school?
>
> This report is very incomplete. It doens't take into account the fact
> that magnet schools are separate from regular schools on the same
> campus, and many well-respected high schools are missing from the list.
>
But Magnet schools usually aren't separate from their parent schools.
Technically, Lowell High School (San Francisco) and schools like
Stuyvesant and Bronx Science (NYC) _are_ separate "magnet" schools,
because they have their own campuses, do not rely on another school
for support services, and uphold (acclaimed) academic requirements
an expectations for _all_ students at the school....and their clienteles
come from all over the city. And actually, Gretchen Whitney-- the #1
school on the list-- is technically a magnet school.
I agree that magnet schools and schools with magnet programs (with
students chosen by application) cannot be adequately compared with
suburban schools (with students chosen by real-estate prices and
attendance zones), though the suburban schools tend to do well in
rankings due to their socio-economic and cultural exclusivity (again,
thanks to real-estate prices and attendance zones). On the university
level, it's kind of like comparing a large, midwestern public school
with a private, ivy-status school. The public school on the whole may
be academically worse than mediocre, but the selective honors program
attached to the school may be quite good or even excellent. But the
private school, itself equivalent to a selective honors program,
may have a better academic climate due to its selectivity, ex-
clusivity, and self-containment.
> By the way, in general these kinds of rankings are somewhat unfair. For
> some reason, suburban schools in small, wealthy districts are always
> ranked better than similarly-funded schools in bigger districts?
> Schools like La Canada High and Palo Alto High are always ranked batter
> than Los Angeles' El Camino Real High (which won the NATIONAL Academic
> Decathalon in 1995 and 1996).
>
Most of the students at suburban schools like La Canada and Palo Alto
have more advantages, generally speaking. Even the bottom 25% of the
students at such schools are fairly academically competitive, and
most of this group plans to go to college (usually JC then transfer
to a 4-year school), most come from well-educated and highly resource-
ful families, and most are positively affected by the highly competitive
academic and intellectual climate on campus. In spite of the excellent
students that do go to schools like El Camino, most of the students
(and especially the bottom 25%) probably do not have similar social
and cultural environments.
Timothy Wu
RST (rta...@creighton.edu) wrote:
: Just a general question to the people in the know, what, if any, are the
Ranking high schools based on their SAT averages is not the way to go.
There should be some established method to assess academics, student
achievement, faculty, and school resources.
A couple of years ago, the New York City Board of Education released its
report cards for the various public high schools. At the same time, the
BOE released a statement that said comparing the schools and ranking them
based on only one aspect of these report cards would not be an inaccurate
method of deciding which school to attend.
As great as the New York Times thinks it is, it ranked high schools based
on only one aspect of these report cards. The Times specifically focused
on high school SAT averages, but failed to present the rest of the report
comprehensively.
As a result my high school, Brooklyn Tech., long considered among the
finest high schools (and one of the three science high schools) in the US,
was placed in the number 5 spot of the top 5 high schools in New York City
(based on SAT averages).
Since it's been noted by the ETS that the SAT is a "culturally biased
exam" toward underrepresented minorities, the Times should have presented
the ethnic breakdown of these schools. It did not.
Brooklyn Tech's student body consists of nearly 50% underrepresented
minority students. According to studies on the SATs, these types of
students will invariably score LOWER than other groups.
Stuyvesant and Bronx Science, which placed 1 and 2 respectively, in this
ranking have underrepresented minority student body of under 10% and 20%.
So comparing schools based on SAT averages is stupid, unless you take into
account the other characteristics of the school.
Timothy Wu
Brooklyn Tech. HS, Biomed., '95
Timothy Wu
R Schellhous (rsc...@pcisys.net) wrote:
: recognizable within the state. So who cares if I dont go to some All-
: American high school? If some college thinks that I suck because I
: don't go to Lowell HS or Stuy..whatever, I don't want to go to that
: college anyway.
Attending a prestigious high school -- the elite academies -- helps in
getting into a good college. And a good college is the right way toward a
successful future.
So the high school you attend definitely plays a role in your future, and
you should not walk around with such a nonchalant attitude toward your
high school education.
Timothy Wu
NYU Arts and Science, Chemistry, '99
Joseph Corkery
Red Robin wrote:
>
> What exactly does it take to get into the NMS finals, or semifinals, for
> that matter? I have a selection index of 206 and my combined percentile
I believe the actual cutoff point is determined by each state. I think
in Massachusetts it is something like 206, but I am not sure.
I am pretty sure that it is lower in most other states for some reason.
-Joe:)
Seasplash9
Winchester, which I believe is next to Lexington is pretty good too right?
Greg Tseng
Red Robin wrote:
>
> What exactly does it take to get into the NMS finals, or semifinals, for
> that matter? I have a selection index of 206 and my combined percentile
> is good/average/mediocre? As far as I know, I did better than most of
> my friends, but when you live 'out in the sticks,' that doesn't
> necessarily mean a lot.
>
> Thanks for the help.
In general, to be a semifinalists, you have to be in the top 0.5% of
your state which usually means you need to have a 99 percentile. This
year for my state of Virginia, the cutoff was 219.
Jeff Schoner
>> What exactly does it take to get into the NMS finals, or semifinals, for
>> that matter? I have a selection index of 206 and my combined percentile
>
>I believe the actual cutoff point is determined by each state. I think
>in Massachusetts it is something like 206, but I am not sure.
>I am pretty sure that it is lower in most other states for some reason.
In less populated states, generally, the cut-offs are lower. CA, NY,
and TX have some of the higher cut-offs.
--
Jeff Schoner
z...@primenet.com
jsch...@flashpoint.com
R Schellhous
Give it a rest. Just because somebody lives in an area with a good
school, why should that mean that they get any more consideration than
those of us from Anyschool High School. I go to Rampart HS in Colo.
Sprgs. Sure, it is not among the elite of America, but I am getting a
pretty good education. Our sports teams and clubs are well
Dylan Alexander
}Since it's been noted by the ETS that the SAT is a "culturally biased
}exam" toward underrepresented minorities, the Times should have presented
}the ethnic breakdown of these schools.
Please let's not start this tired old argument over again.
--
Dylan Alexander
dy...@tamu.edu
Wayne Hsieh
Howdy,
I just can't resist to point out the fact that Alhambra High School of
Alhambra, CA had three Westinghouse Semifinalists this year. <G> Our
Biomed program is supposed to be fairly well know (the Science Dept.
head is supposed to be fairly well connected with local labs and the
llike) and has a great deal of success. A couple of years ago one of
our students got to go to Sweden for the presentation of the Nobel
prize. Last year we had one guy make Westinghouse Top 40.
Alhambra is kinda spotty in some areas, but its a pretty good school
(even if two of my current teachers are twits <G>) so IMHO Alhambra
might not have the glory of Philip's Exeter, but it's good enough.
--
Wayne Hsieh
whs...@telis.org
"Will no one tell me what she sings?
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And Battles long ago."
-From "The Solitary Reaper" by Wordsworth
Quoted by John Keegan in THE FACE OF BATTLE
Timothy Wu
news.doit.wisc.edu>:
Distribution:
RST (rta...@creighton.edu) wrote:
: and also, how is the sat biased? i'm just curious because i've never
: heard about this before.
I'm not sure myself. In fact, I don't really believe it's "culturally
biased," but if that's what the ETS says, then I guess we all have to
believe it. :)
Timothy Wu
Brooklyn Tech. HS, Biomed., '95
NYU Arts and Science, Chem., '99
Armand
In article <dylan-20019...@news.tamu.edu>
dy...@tamu.edu (Dylan Alexander) writes:
>In article <5bunv1$i10$1...@news.nyu.edu>
>tqw...@is4.nyu.edu (Timothy Wu) wrote:
>}Since it's been noted by the ETS that the SAT is a "culturally biased
>}exam" toward underrepresented minorities, the Times should have presented
>}the ethnic breakdown of these schools.
>Please let's not start this tired old argument over again.
Dinesh D'Souza, "Scoring America; The Lesson of Standardized Tests: Compete
Harder," The Washington Post, August 25, 1991:
"The central point is that the SAT is a reasonably good predictor of college
performance. Indeed numerous studies have shown that it is a much more
reliable forecaster than other measures, such as high school grades, essays
or interviews-- although obviously these are helpful too in assessing
college potential. Inequality of results does not by itself prove that the
SAT is an ineffective measure of academic competence."
"How, then, to explain the fact that, with a maximum score of 1,600, the
average SAT score for whites is roughly 200 points higher than that for
blacks? The explanation is hardly surprising: Not for innate reasons, but
for historical and cultural reasons that have their roots in slavery,
segregation and oppression, blacks as a group do not arrive at the gates of
college with the same advantages of academic preparation as whites.
Hispanics on average fall somewhere in between, and Asian Americans are
fully competitive with whites, scoring somewhat lower on the verbal section
of the SAT, somewhat higher on the math section. The SAT accurately gauges
differences in college preparation among individuals and groups."
"Indeed, the gaps in mean test scores tell us that there are serious
problems to address, such as terrible neighborhoods, ineffective public
schools, inequitable access to resources. Unfortunately, instead of
addressing the root problems and taking up hard questions such as
illiteracy, lack of motivation and social pathologies in our elementary and
secondary schools, critics and activists have decided to fault the test."
-----------------------------------------------------------v---------v-----\
"Is there any education theorist who would endorse a |amendola@|hv502|
program that has students take a class for a full semester |students.|@po. |
or a full year and get a single examination at the end? |wisc.edu |cwru |
People who conduct that kind of educational program are | |.edu |
not trying to educate." --Talbot D'Alemberte on Legal | | |
Education, ABA Journal, September 1990. | | |
Dylan Alexander
In article <amendola.2...@students.wisc.edu>,
amen...@students.wisc.edu (Armand) wrote:
}In article <dylan-20019...@news.tamu.edu>
}dy...@tamu.edu (Dylan Alexander) writes:
}>In article <5bunv1$i10$1...@news.nyu.edu>
}>tqw...@is4.nyu.edu (Timothy Wu) wrote:
}>}Since it's been noted by the ETS that the SAT is a "culturally biased
}>}exam" toward underrepresented minorities, the Times should have presented
}>}the ethnic breakdown of these schools.
}>Please let's not start this tired old argument over again.
}
}Dinesh D'Souza, "Scoring America; The Lesson of Standardized Tests: Compete
}Harder," The Washington Post, August 25, 1991:
}
}"How, then, to explain the fact that, with a maximum score of 1,600, the
}average SAT score for whites is roughly 200 points higher than that for
}blacks? The explanation is hardly surprising: Not for innate reasons, but
}for historical and cultural reasons that have their roots in slavery,
}segregation and oppression, blacks as a group do not arrive at the gates of
}college with the same advantages of academic preparation as whites.
You appear to have omitted the section where he proves this statement.
It's intuitively appealing, but I'd like to see some sort of empirical
anaylsis of average SAT's taking into effect race, socio-economics status,
neighborhood, personal factors (divorced parents, abuse, drugs, personal
reading habits, etc.), and probably some other possible influences I'm
not remembering.
}"Indeed, the gaps in mean test scores tell us that there are serious
}problems to address, such as terrible neighborhoods, ineffective public
}schools, inequitable access to resources. Unfortunately, instead of
}addressing the root problems and taking up hard questions such as
}illiteracy, lack of motivation and social pathologies in our elementary and
}secondary schools, critics and activists have decided to fault the test."
This I can agree with.
--
Dylan Alexander
dy...@tamu.edu
RST
In article <5bunv1$i10$1...@news.nyu.edu>, tqw...@is4.nyu.edu says...
>Ranking high schools based on their SAT averages is not the way to go.
>There should be some established method to assess academics, student
>achievement, faculty, and school resources.
>As a result my high school, Brooklyn Tech., long considered among the
>finest high schools (and one of the three science high schools) in the
US,
>was placed in the number 5 spot of the top 5 high schools in New York
City
>(based on SAT averages).
>
>Since it's been noted by the ETS that the SAT is a "culturally biased
>exam" toward underrepresented minorities, the Times should have
presented
>the ethnic breakdown of these schools. It did not.
>
>Brooklyn Tech's student body consists of nearly 50% underrepresented
>minority students. According to studies on the SATs, these types of
>students will invariably score LOWER than other groups.
>
>Stuyvesant and Bronx Science, which placed 1 and 2 respectively, in
this
>ranking have underrepresented minority student body of under 10% and
20%.
I agree that SAT averages are not the end all, be all in ranking high
schools, but it does give a standard to measure against throughout the
nation (testing is the same throughout the nation, but grading practices
and academic programs vary by locality). other factors should be taken
into consideration like the ones you mentioned: faculty, resources, etc.
i don't think it is quite "stupid" to take into account sat scores.
Cheggue
I had an index of 211 and I didn't get a semi-finalist, I became
"commended," which irked me greatly considering that when I took the SATs
I was the only one in the class who could've gotten the semifinalists.
Bruce
rmc...@acsu.buffalo.edu wrote:
>
> Actually, North Hollywood HGM is not a school; it is a program _within_
> a school. It is an adjunct of North Hollywood Sr. High, and as such it
> is not completely separate (academically, socially, athletically, etc.)
> from its parent institution. I don't doubt the Magnet students are
> really awesome; I read that at least a 145 IQ is required to get in,
> and the students are given opportunities not available to the general
> students of NHSH. But the Magnet is still a program (of approximately
> 200 students) within a larger school (of over 1000 students).
>
> By the way, isn't Harvard-Westlake a private school?
>
Actually, some Los Angeles Unified magnet schools *are* separate
schools. Although they share athletic teams with the regular school,
they have completely separate budgets, maintaiance, test administration,
etc.
Tell the students at North Hollywood Highly Gifted, Van Nuys Math and
Science, and Cleveland Humanities that the magnets aren't separate
schools; they'll laugh and tell you how their 4.2 GPA only gets then a
rank of 14 or 15 out of 160 (becuase the magnets are ranked separately).
Basically, colleges know that magnet schools are separate. Students at
North Hollywood magnet are sought MUCH more than the regular school
students. Since the entire point of high school rankings is to see the
quality of education and competitiveness to colleges; when magnets
aren't separated, the picture painted is inaccurate.
Armand
>You appear to have omitted the section where he proves this statement.
Nope. I've accurately encapsulated the heart of his argument, which
goes unproven at least in the context of that particular article.
>It's intuitively appealing, but I'd like to see some sort of empirical
>anaylsis of average SAT's taking into effect race, socio-economics status,
>neighborhood, personal factors (divorced parents, abuse, drugs, personal
>reading habits, etc.), and probably some other possible influences I'm
>not remembering.
Me too.
If you're willing to take a trek through Deja News, I earlier posted
some statistics which compared SAT performance as a function of race
to SAT performance as a function of socio-economic background. I
believe I titled it "Statistical Fodder."
Jeremy Thorp Fox
Timothy Wu (tqw...@is4.nyu.edu) wrote:
: I'm not sure myself. In fact, I don't really believe it's "culturally
: biased," but if that's what the ETS says, then I guess we all have to
: believe it. :)
Where do they say this?
--
Jeremy T. Fox Baker College
f...@rice.edu Rice University
http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~fox/
rmc...@acsu.buffalo.edu
On Mon, 20 Jan 1997, Bruce wrote:
> rmc...@acsu.buffalo.edu wrote:
> >
> > Actually, North Hollywood HGM is not a school; it is a program _within_
> > a school. It is an adjunct of North Hollywood Sr. High, and as such it
> > is not completely separate (academically, socially, athletically, etc.)
> > from its parent institution. I don't doubt the Magnet students are
> > really awesome; I read that at least a 145 IQ is required to get in,
> > and the students are given opportunities not available to the general
> > students of NHSH. But the Magnet is still a program (of approximately
> > 200 students) within a larger school (of over 1000 students).
> >
> > By the way, isn't Harvard-Westlake a private school?
> >
>
> Actually, some Los Angeles Unified magnet schools *are* separate
> schools. Although they share athletic teams with the regular school,
> they have completely separate budgets, maintaiance, test administration,
> etc.
North Hollywood HGM's own web page states the magnet's affiliation with
North Hollywood Sr. High. By NHHGM's own admission, then, it is not a
separate school. It may *feel* like a separate school to its students,
and it undoubtedly has its own bureaucracy and autonomous functions,
but the web page info suggests that the magnet is nonetheless an
adjunct of the regular school.
I'm also kind of curious to know how course offerings are handled
among the NHHGM students. With only 55 students in the senior class,
and with (presumably) 200 or so magnet students overall, do the
students take classes only with other magnet students? If so, how
are highly specialized courses offered, given potentially low en-
rollments (in languages, English electives, social studies, etc.)?
Or do some magnet students take classes with some non-magnet students?
This could be a key to understanding the technical difference between
"separate schools" and "separate programs."
>
> Tell the students at North Hollywood Highly Gifted, Van Nuys Math and
> Science, and Cleveland Humanities that the magnets aren't separate
> schools; they'll laugh and tell you how their 4.2 GPA only gets then a
> rank of 14 or 15 out of 160 (becuase the magnets are ranked separately).
>
Separate rankings is not necessarily a sign of schools, though it
does seem like a good way to show the distinctiveness of the program,
and it lets colleges know exactly what the pool of comparison is like.
This is very much to the magnet's advantage.
Don't Van Nuys and Cleveland have their own campuses? (I thought they
did, at any rate.)
> Basically, colleges know that magnet schools are separate. Students at
> North Hollywood magnet are sought MUCH more than the regular school
> students. Since the entire point of high school rankings is to see the
> quality of education and competitiveness to colleges; when magnets
> aren't separated, the picture painted is inaccurate.
>
>
This is similar to how honor's programs work at many large, public
universities. At Ohio State U, for example, the Honor's Program is
attached to the general university, but it still maintains a large
degree of autonomy. And there's a world of difference between the
Honor's Program and the regular program; if you want to graduate
from Ohio State and attend, say, a top ten law school, graduation
from the Honor's Program is pretty much expected. Employers and
grad schools definitely know the difference.
BTan
I originally started this thread and I've enjoyed the messages of all
who responded. One reason I began the thread was to see if anyone would
address the prestige and namesake of an academically strong school and
how that school's reputation of academics is considered in college
admissions. Unclear? Well...
I attend Lowell High School in San Francisco which is fairly widely
known for its academic prestige. (Some people in here have either never
heard of it or failed to mention it, but anyway...) I know and all my
fellow Lowellites know (and probably every student at a rigorous
academic school knows) that attending the school we attend can possibly
make us look less great than a person who goes to Anytown High School.
Going to Lowell has given me the opportunity to get a more extensive
education than one from Anytown High, but it also makes my GPA suffer. A
person can argue that "a real genius" would do fine in any school. So
I'm not a genius, but I do have qualities that are "above average" and
that's why I attend Lowell.
So my point is... I have around a 3.4 GPA at Lowell with difficult
courses and a large load of extra-curriculars... whereas I would
probably be getting a 4.0+ GPA at Anytown High with a load of
extra-curriculars ('cause I'm just an active kinda guy). Did I make the
right decision in going to Lowell have having my GPA "suffer?" Should
junior high school students attempt to attend the best high schools
around or should they remain at their district school? And back to the
original questions: How much do college admissions officers look at a
school's name? How does a student with identical stats from Anytown High
stack up with a student from Lowell (or other schools that rank around
Lowell, like Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and Thomas Jefferson Science)?
Thanks. :)
Armand
In article <amendola.3...@students.wisc.edu>
amen...@students.wisc.edu (Armand) writes:
>If you're willing to take a trek through Deja News, I earlier posted
>some statistics which compared SAT performance as a function of race
>to SAT performance as a function of socio-economic background.
For those not interested in trudging through Deja News, but interested
in the piece referred to, I dug up a copy:
What happens if race-based affirmative action is replaced with class-
based admission preferences?
"Hispanics and blacks make up a fifth of all high school graduates.
Because of that low share, even though they were likely to come from low-
income families, they represented only a third of poor college-age students.
A college would have had to admit three students through a colorblind,
class-conscious preference to yield a Hispanic or a black."
"Factoring in SAT scores, the numbers change drastically. Among those who
scored 1100 or above, Hispanics and blacks were more likely to come from
low-income families but represented only 6 percent of the low-income
youths who scored that high. A college limiting itself to those who
scored 1100 or above--the threshold for applicants to the top 20 percent
of colleges where affirmative action is concentrated--would have had to
admit 16 students through low-income preferences to get one Hispanic or
black."
"This analysis is based on national data, so Kane argues that in states with
higher shares of minorities, like California and Texas, the outcome of a
shift to a class-based approach might be less extreme. The University of
California-Berkeley has studied the consequences of that sort of shift and
the results are sobering there as well."
"According to a confidential memorandum from Berkeley Chancellor Chang-Lin
Tien, applying class-based standards to the most recent pool of applicants,
the incoming class would have held less than half as many Hispanics (7
percent vs. 15) and blacks (3 percent vs. 6.5). By contrast, it would have
contained many more Asians (46 percent vs. 38.2) and somewhat more whites
(32 percent vs. 29.4)."
"Berkeley's current approach represents a middle ground. About it, the
school has hard data. In 1989, the university switched from a system
based largely on race to one giving special consideration for race and
class. From '89 to '94, the share of admitted Hispanics dropped (from
21 percent to 17), as did the share of blacks (11 percent to 7). The
percentage of whites fell modestly (37 percent to 33), while the percentage
of Asians soared (24 percent to 36)."
"To Jerome Karabel, a sociologist at Berkeley, 'the lessons are
unmistakeable': Hispanics and blacks of every economic level, including
the working class and poor, will be replaced by whites and especially
Asians in a class-based plan."
"For law schools, the story is starker. Linda Wightman, an official of the
Law School Admission Council, had an unparalleled source of information,
data for 90,000 applicants to every certified school in fall, 1991. She
concluded that colorblind admissions would have had 'a devastating impact'
on minorities. Twenty-six percent of blacks were admitted then through
race-conscious plans. Under a colorblind model, the number would have
plummeted to 3 percent."
Lincoln Caplan with Dorian Friedman and Julian E. Barnes, "The Hopwood
Effect Kicks in on Campus," _US News and World Report_, December 23,
1996.
Graham Robinson
BTan <wuta...@earthlink.net> wrote in article
<32E581...@earthlink.net>...
> So my point is... I have around a 3.4 GPA at Lowell with difficult
> courses and a large load of extra-curriculars... whereas I would
> probably be getting a 4.0+ GPA at Anytown High with a load of
> extra-curriculars ('cause I'm just an active kinda guy).
This really depends on what level of school you are talking about. You
refer to a 4.0+ at another school, so I'll guess that you are at least
considering the possibility of Ivy League and comparable schools. Two
comments on that (both of which assume that there are some students at
Lowell with 4.0 GPAs. If Lowell simply grades low, e.g. your 3.4 puts you
in the top 10%, then this doesn't apply):
1) Most admissions officers would not agree with you that because you have
a 3.4 at Lowell, you would probably have a 4.0 at Anytown High.
2) Admissions officers will generally believe that their school's academic
environment is much tougher than your high school's -- no matter where you
went. In the case of the 3.4 from a very good high school, they have more
information than they do on the average student: you were able to succeed,
but not reach the top, of your high school class. Thus, depending on the
applicant pool and the mood of the admissions officer, you may or may not
get in. The admissions officer will probably believe that you could do the
academic work, but they will also believe that you will be at best an
average college student. Admissions officers, faced with reading so many
applications, generally only accept people who they think will be
phenomenal high school students.
The issue is complicated, and to some degree, if viewed from strictly a
college-admissions perspective, a student would be better off at Anytown
high school than at a high quality magnet or other top high school, if that
student does end up first in his/her class. But keep in mind that if you
don't wind up first in your class at Anytown high school, your admissions
chances fall apart.
More importantly, remember that college admissions are unbelievably
competitive. Admissions officers are attracted to students who value
education for its own sake, who are intellectually interesting (and
interested...), etc. Thus, the best advice for any high school student is
to go to the best high school that he or she can, and let the chips fall
where they may. I know that this is hard to do, with all of the pressure
to think about college, but believe me: the more you think about setting
yourself up for admission to the most competitive colleges, the more likely
you are to limit your chances of getting into one.
Best Wishes,
Graham Robinson
-----------
drob...@law.harvard.edu
ScI 1997
>As a result my high school, Brooklyn Tech., long considered among the
>finest high schools (and one of the three science high schools) in the
US,
>was placed in the number 5 spot of the top 5 high schools in New York
City
>(based on SAT averages).
Yes, it can be seen that SAT's may be biased against certain schools with
special factors such as minority problem. However I think the Brooklyn
Technical as well as other science high schools have most of their
minority population from the asian-american group. As a general
statement, a lot of these minorities actually help raise your school's SAT
average and would not be affected by any SAT questions.
Another thing that can somewhat be true in this issue is the way the NYC
science schools operate. In order to be admitted all applicants must take
a SAT-type test in 8th/9th grade to be considered. Since Brookyln Tech's
cutoff is not the highest, no matter how good the school's programs are,
the students that are enrolled will probably score lower than lets say
students at Stuyvesant.
Keith
Carey Heckman
In article <32E581...@earthlink.net>,
BTan <wuta...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>Did I make the
>right decision in going to Lowell have having my GPA "suffer?" Should
>junior high school students attempt to attend the best high schools
>around or should they remain at their district school?
You made the right choice because to have a shot at the most selective
colleges, like a Dartmouth, your best chance of admission is to be
academically competitive with those from the top 10% of the best schools.
Going to a less competitive school or taking less competitive courses
raises the "big fish in a little pond" question. Depending on the rest of
the information (like those 1600 SATs), it could be resolved in your favor.
Or it might not.
As someone mentioned earlier, don't be fooled into thinking the most
selective schools have to settle for high extracurriculars and low
grades or high grades and lower extracurriculars, or great grades at
lesser schools or lower grades at better schools. The most selective
schools get to pick pretty much whatever they wish. They're greatest
trauma is filtering through the surplus of talent (personal *and*
academic) riches, not deciding what compromises to accept.
Another plus about a Lowell (or a Palo Alto or Gunn or Whitman or so
forth) is that the most selective schools know the schools and the courses.
With the high schools they see less consistently, they have to guess. I
would not count on the admissions people being much in the way of risk
takers when they don't have the information (the moral of the story is
that if you go to a high school that lacks a track record with a school
to which you are applying, make sure your counselor sends them background
information on the school's strengths and special features... I think
a void of information generally counts against an applicant rather than
in his or her favor).
At less selective schools, my guess is that the better high school still
serves you better because they would want to establish representation and
a connection with those schools.
>original questions: How much do college admissions officers look at a
>school's name?
No one can quantify it, but the most selective schools *definitely* take
it into account when they have the information. They even look at the
specific courses you have taken (I know someone who took a course in
"Salads" and another in "Desserts" their senior year, primarily because of
the favorable gender ratios, and was not accepted to his first choice school
because the admissions office thought it reflected a lack of academic
seriousness even though he had a high overall GPA and SATs and had completed
almost all of his coursework a year early).
--
Carey Heckman
Stanford Law School
--
--
Carey
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
c...@stanford.edu http://www-techlaw.stanford.edu
(415) 725-7788 fax: (415)
725-1861
Yukon Yale
ScI 1997 (sci...@aol.com) wrote:
: Yes, it can be seen that SAT's may be biased against certain schools with
: special factors such as minority problem. However I think the Brooklyn
: Technical as well as other science high schools have most of their
: minority population from the asian-american group. As a general
: statement, a lot of these minorities actually help raise your school's SAT
: average and would not be affected by any SAT questions.
Your statement implying that minorities are a problem in schools is
laughable. When I spoke of minorities, I meant underrepresented
minorities -- a special term only found in admissions books that says
Asian Americans, though normally a minority, aren't a minority when it
comes to getting into college. Anyway, as far as minorities go, Brooklyn
Tech has an 80% minority student population (of 5,000 students).
Stuyvesant has a minority student population of 60% (of approximately
3,000 students) and Bronx Science has between a 60 and 70% minority
student population (also of about 3,000 students).
As with most math/science intensive high schools, there is a considerably
high number of Asian Americans at Tech. But there is, for a math/science
high school, an unusually high percentage of students who fall into the
underrepresented minority column. And it's this number which, since the
SATs are biased against these types of students, pulls the SAT average
down. And this is where I said the New York Times made a big mistake.
Anyway, let's get down to a few quick percentages of underrepresented
minorities in the New York City Specialized Science High Schools: Brooklyn
Tech has an underrepresented minority student population of about 50%,
Stuyvesant's is 10% and Bronx Science's is in the upper teens or low 20s.
Not sure about Science.
: Another thing that can somewhat be true in this issue is the way the NYC
: science schools operate. In order to be admitted all applicants must take
: a SAT-type test in 8th/9th grade to be considered. Since Brookyln Tech's
: cutoff is not the highest, no matter how good the school's programs are,
: the students that are enrolled will probably score lower than lets say
: students at Stuyvesant.
Which is right on the money. In fact, when I was still at Tech, I only
knew of a few students who had been admitted to Stuyvesant but chose to
attend Tech. I was admitted to Bronx Science but decided on going to
Tech, and I wasn't alone -- that's for sure.
But no matter the cutoffs for the three science high schools, it still
didn't make sense for the New York Times to stick us in the #5 spot when
Staten Island Technical High School (the "imposter" Tech) hit either #3 or
#4 because of its small student population, its relatively small
underrepresented minority student population, and the handful of students
who take the exam. Following your example, we can assume that all but
11,000 high school students in New York City were "smart enough" to get
into the science high schools, and that means the top 3 in SAT averages
should've been Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, then Brooklyn Tech. But it
didn't work out that way, and only because, and I say this AGAIN, the New
York Times failed to recognize the other factors which affect SAT
outcomes.
I would like to point out that the New York Times has a history of putting
Brooklyn Tech in the worse light possible, virtually ignoring Bronx
Science's existence, and putting Stuyvesant on a pedestal. Don't know
why, and I'm certainly not the only person who's noticed this trend.
Sorry for leaving all the non-New York City people out in the cold.
Steve Barthakur
Eric C West wrote:
>
> Speaking entirely unofficially: if anything, attending a secondary school
> with a "good" reputation may hinder one's chances of getting into a
> highly selective college. Admission officers may expect far more from
> students at "elite" schools than students at other schools, since the
> former are supposedly receiving better instruction than the latter. If one
> gets lost in the shuffle at a magnet school, the name of the school alone
> will definitely not help, even if the student might have had a higher class
> rank elsewhere. The bottom line is that there is no substitute for working
> hard and doing well.
>
In a few situations, it's easier to do better at various colleges over
certain challenging high schools. This scenario really places the high
schooler at a disadvantage because his work is being devalued by the
presence of grade inflation at other institutes (both high school and
college). I believe that national exams should replace institutional
grade point averages so that students only compete against themselves
and the nation as a whole rather than their classmates.
-S.B.
~
Eric C West
In article <5buo3n$i10$2...@news.nyu.edu>, Timothy Wu wrote:
>
>Attending a prestigious high school -- the elite academies -- helps in
>getting into a good college. And a good college is the right way toward a
>successful future.
>So the high school you attend definitely plays a role in your future, and
>you should not walk around with such a nonchalant attitude toward your
>high school education.
Speaking entirely unofficially: if anything, attending a secondary school
with a "good" reputation may hinder one's chances of getting into a
highly selective college. Admission officers may expect far more from
students at "elite" schools than students at other schools, since the
former are supposedly receiving better instruction than the latter. If one
gets lost in the shuffle at a magnet school, the name of the school alone
will definitely not help, even if the student might have had a higher class
rank elsewhere. The bottom line is that there is no substitute for working
hard and doing well.
ecw
e-w...@nwu.edu
"All opinions mine -- nobody else's."
Yukon Yale
Eric C West (fi...@merle.acns.nwu.edu) wrote:
: Speaking entirely unofficially: if anything, attending a secondary school
: with a "good" reputation may hinder one's chances of getting into a
: highly selective college. Admission officers may expect far more from
: students at "elite" schools than students at other schools, since the
: former are supposedly receiving better instruction than the latter. If one
: gets lost in the shuffle at a magnet school, the name of the school alone
: will definitely not help, even if the student might have had a higher class
: rank elsewhere. The bottom line is that there is no substitute for working
: hard and doing well.
The college admissions game is completely unpredictable. Different
admissions officers will look at "magnet" students differently. It's all
jsut one interpretation. The general rule is, however, the better your
secondary school, the better your chances for admission at a selective
college.
As for getting lost in the magnet school shuffle... Friends of mine who
got lost in that shuffle turned out perfectly fine. Sure, they don't
attend the most prestigious of colleges, they are nontheless respectable.
Hmmm... Lemme give a quick example. Would attending Boston University be
the mark of someone "screwed up?"
At my high school nearly 99% of all seniors went on to four-year colleges.
The remaining 1% went off to the various military academies and two-year
colleges.
Charles Lin
There's a tradeoff with attending a top high school. Some people
will claim that going to a magnet school hurts their chances of getting
into one of the "prestige" universities. Because there are so many
good students, it's hard to be at the top. It can be extrememly
competitive. A "B" student might be an "A" student at another high
school. So, the argument goes.
I heard similar comments when I was at Cornell "If I had only gone
to a state university, I could be an A student". After being at a
state university, I'm not sure that's the case. Some state
universities are pretty decent. Even if there aren't as many
top-notch students, they're still there, and some of these
universities suffer from less grade inflation than an Ivy League
counterpart. The end result is that a student doing poorly at a top
university, might still be doing likewise poorly at a state
university.
The flip side to attending a magnet school is that if you
really are good, then you're almost a shoo-in to the top universities.
A person who does very well in a magnet school might not have
the same opportunities at a lesser high school. I knew someone
who basically had to compensate for this problem by entering in
the Westinghouse Science competition which is one way to get
students from no-name high schools to be nationally recognized.
This person managed to be in the top 40 selected.
--
Charles Lin
cl...@cs.umd.edu
Charles Lin
|| : I'm not sure myself. In fact, I don't really believe it's "culturally
|| : biased," but if that's what the ETS says, then I guess we all have to
|| : believe it. :)
|| Where do they say this?
The ETS usually doesn't claim this at all. Their viewpoint is that
the tests are a fair way to measure a student's abilities. To claim
otherwise would be to discredit the view of having the SATs in the
first place. So, ETS is always going to claim that there is no bias
in the test.
Generally, minority advocates will claim that the SATs are culturally
biased. The typical example might be something like the word "regatta".
This word has to do with racing boats and is usually a sport of the wealthy
(though not always). Hence, a poor African American student living
in the inner cities would be unfamiliar with the word and be at a
disadvantage compared to an upper middle class white American living in
the suburbs.
ETS has responded to some of this by making replacing "he" with "she"
(to decrease gender bias) and to have more minority-oriented reading articles
in their exams. Of course, this doesn't explain why test takes in India
can fare very well on the GRE verbal section. India's culture should
be quite different from the culture of the US, and yet top-notch students
are known to get perfect 2400's (math, verbal, analytical) in the GRE's
(the graduate equivalent of the SATs, also administered by ETS).
The issues of bias mostly affect the verbal portions of the test.
In general, I think the issues often have more to do with income than
anything else. Also, the views of parents toward education and their
involvement in their children's education can also play a factor.
If one reads enough and knows how to study for tests like the SATs,
it's possible to do well on them. However, minorities can be at
a disadvantage based on the kind of English they speak at home (e.g.,
ebonics). It's easier to do well on verbals the closer you speak
standard English at home (and the more interested you are in reading
books and understanding them).
In the end, I'm not that much of a fan of SATs. I'd rather
go towards the Achievement tests. Forget the "potential" to do
well in college, and measure how well you learned the stuff in
high school.
--
Charles Lin
cl...@cs.umd.edu