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> This is a huge problem that, in retrospect, was rampant where I came from. A pretty typical middle-class suburban high school, but one which rarely to essenti
by wheels 12y ago
> This is a huge problem that, in retrospect, was rampant where I came from. A pretty typical middle-class suburban high school, but one which rarely to essentially never sent any graduates to Ivy League schools. Why? Because it wasn't part of the community's culture.
Hmm, I'm skeptical that it was a cultural issue. I went to a suburban high school and the issue wasn't that we didn't somehow know about the top schools, it's that you had virtually zero chance of getting in.
My best friends were the top couple students from my year and the year before me and I watched them mortified as the pattern played out -- they each applied to several top tier universities and were deflated when the stream of rejections came in (though one got into Notre Dame). Just being a valedictorian, active, national merit scholar wasn't enough. Most ended up going to their "safety" schools -- either University of Texas or Texas A&M.
My takeaway from that was that if you were white, middle class and middle-American suburban, that there was almost nothing you could do distinguish yourself enough to get into the country's top schools. As such, I think this announcement is more meaningful for folks from genuinely poor backgrounds than for those from relative suburban privilege.
- faet 12y ago>My takeaway from that was that if you were white, middle class and middle-American suburban, that there was almost nothing you could do distinguish yourself enough to get into the country's top schools. 90% of my graduating class fits that description. Out of a graduating class of 500 I'd say close to 10% of my class got into an Ivy League. Hell we had 9 get into Cornell alone. The 2013 class sent about 5%. It is a public HS but they offered tons of AP/extra curriculars/etc.
- wheels 12y agoThat's impressive. But I think we're working with different notions of suburban. For a suburban high school to have a graduating class of 500, you were presumably around a large population center? Where I grew up, that was the size of the high schools in the city (of about 120k). My school district, an amalgamation of suburban enclaves and small towns, only had about a third of that. I think being close to a larger city means probably a more sophisticated suburban population (I don't think I'd ever met anyone who'd been to an Ivy-ish school prior to college) and larger schools, which allows for more stratified educational tracks.
- smackfu 12y agoAll depends on how big the regions are and how many schools they build. My regional suburbia high school had 350 per class.
- ssanders82 12y agoWhite middle-class male here, graduated HS in 2000. Got perfect 800 on SAT Math, National Merit Finalist, played two sports. Rejected by both Notre Dame and Stanford. Not sure what else I could've done. No sour grapes, that's just the way it is.
- altcognito 12y agoGPA would be the other concern, if it's not perfect...