ivy league admissions from austin area schools (Dallas, Princeton: homes, high schools)

[passionatearts]

Originally Posted by hoffdano

Please don't take offense about Tufts. I know it is a very fine school.

But why does it surprise you how few Texans know about it? Do you really think this is unique to Texans? Do you really think Tufts is well known in California, or Washington, or Missouri? For better or worse - sports raises the national awareness of many colleges. As a Div III NCAA school - their national profile is low - even if they are very good in athletics.

Emory in Atlanta is perhaps similar. But Emory benefits from Jimmy Carter's association with the university.

One friend of ours in Houston was considering Tufts for their daughter. But they were originally from the northeast and were already aware of Tufts.

I think Rice fares slightly better outside Texas because of its reputation as a less expensive elite school - and a university that competes in Div I sports.

You make a good point about the sports thing, but I will say that Tufts has tons of recognition in California and areas outside the northeastern U.S.

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by austinnerd

My point is that that metric has the same issues that something like what newsweek/usnawr put out, you have to understand what exactly you are measuring.

Let's say that it turns out that Westlake sends more kids to the ivy leagues than any other public school in metro Austin. What does that mean, does Westlake really prepare kids for entry into ivy league schools? Many ivy league schools give preference to entrants that have relatives who are alumni. Does the demographics of the Westlake area then possibly predispose that school of having a higher acceptance ratio since one might be more likely to find Harvard grads living there? I'm not saying one way or the other, simply that without this information, one might be tempted to interpret the data in a certain way that would end up being inaccurate.

To me then, the info you ask for, while interesting, is simply a data point, no more meaningful by itself than anything else, including the other published rankings. I think the real bottom line is to start nailing the specific schools that you're interested in and finding out what types of specific things _other_than_ pure academics (since almost _any_ remotely decent high school that has AP/IB will get you that aspect) is going to get you a leg up on everyone else. So if you want to make it into Wharton, you need to go research and see what types of attributes they are looking for (e.g. entrepreneurial experience).

You guys are really frustrating me. I have significant graduate work in statistics, designing tests etc. Im not going to design the perfect experiment on a messageboard and Im not going to base a high school decision on a single number. Im simply looking to find out if anyone knows of ivy league (plus other top school stats). There are other stats I would potentially rather have, but entrance to ivy leagues (or all universities) is actually a reasonably common statistic that guidance counselers would track.

The only 3 schools in the area anyway that have a shot at meeting the bar would be lasa, westwood and westlake.

[austinnerd]

Originally Posted by Austin97

You guys are really frustrating me. I have significant graduate work in statistics, designing tests etc. Im not going to design the perfect experiment on a messageboard and Im not going to base a high school decision on a single number. Im simply looking to find out if anyone knows of ivy league (plus other top school stats). There are other stats I would potentially rather have, but entrance to ivy leagues (or all universities) is actually a reasonably common statistic that guidance counselers would track.

The only 3 schools in the area anyway that have a shot at meeting the bar would be lasa, westwood and westlake.

Sorry, like others have mentioned I've only really seen private school numbers. What's interesting is from what I saw of St Stephens and St Andrews, a very small percentage end up going to the Ivy league schools (as has been mentioned before, onsey twosy type numbers). Of course they don't publish how many tried to gain entry.

BTW, no one is doubting your aptitude with the numbers, there is just disagreement about what importance the numbers hold when the desired goal is to get your kiddo the best shot at making it into an ivy league school (and my perspective comes from having three family members who graduated from said ivy league school).

[centralaustinite]

I also strongly doubt the correlation between the selectivity of the college or university and the quality of the education. I'd rather send my kids to a liberal arts college with small classes and direct professor contact than have them be undergrads at an ivy. Frankly, I think that honors programs at RI state universities offer the highest quality education (smaller classes, more direct contact with profs than kids in the standard program but with the heft and depth of a research university (as opposed to a liberal arts school).

And then there is the whole issue of how well a school fits a particular child.

But as I said before, I don't think that you will find the kind of stats that you are looking for because few of the top-ranked kids at LASA, Westlake, Westwood, and the privates even consider the Ivy League. UT engineering and Plan II and Rice are where kids compete to go.

A few years ago the top grad at Travis High went to Stanford but I doubt you'd send your kid there!

University admission reps would keep the stats you want, central texas high schools like many mid-western ones, don't bother to keep track because the numbers involved are low and the goal of an Ivy isn't widely shared.

[onthefly]

Originally Posted by passionatearts

You make a good point about the sports thing, but I will say that Tufts has tons of recognition in California and areas outside the northeastern U.S.

Tufts is an ivy league back-up. That is where the term tufts syndrome originated because the school knew so many people were using them as a back-up they would start rejecting well-qualified applicants because they were sick of being the last choice.

Tufts has a constant inferiority complex to the Ivy League schools and the graduates are constantly trying to convince people that they are "on par" with HYPSM etc. just because a US news list says they are

[onthefly]

the goal of an Ivy isn't widely shared.

Perhaps central TX is different, but for houston this is not remotely true. Everyone ranked in the top 20 at my high school had aspirations to go to an Ivy League/ stanford type school and only those who were rejected ended up at rice or UT.

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by onthefly

Perhaps central TX is different, but for houston this is not remotely true. Everyone ranked in the top 20 at my high school had aspirations to go to an Ivy League/ stanford type school and only those who were rejected ended up at rice or UT.

Same here and I went to a school in a small town. I use ivy for shorthand for the top 10-20 universities in the country. This includes stanford, MIT, caltech, berkeley etc.

[faithrube]

The high schools absolutely track where their graduates go, and the universities track what high schools they admit from. I'm not sure that data is easily available or made public.

I interview kids here is Austin for my alma mater (an Ivy) as a member of the secondary school committee and there are more applicants from this area every year. The Ivies (and other top tier schools) are very interested in increasing applications from Austin and are doing a much better job of recruiting in this area.

[achtungpv]

Originally Posted by Austin97

Same here and I went to a school in a small town. I use ivy for shorthand for the top 10-20 universities in the country. This includes stanford, MIT, caltech, berkeley etc.

Different world. I went to a small 3A high school near the cost and our valedictorian didn't even go to college.

[mimimomx3]

Originally Posted by Austin97

The goal for most high school students is to go to the best possible university. If the best possible universities are the ivys + a few other elite schools, why wouldnt it make sense to see if there are schools that regularly have students accepted to those schools at a higher rate than any other school? .

The major is the end all be all- how do you define the "best possible university"? The best university may not be a HYP at all.