It is winter time and in the sports world, that means the baseball off-season is in full swing. If you follow the sport closely, you also must have some level of interest in statistics. Statistics reign supreme both on the diamond and off. Indeed, as described in the book and film “Moneyball”, baseball clubhouses have taken deep dives into a variety stats to improve their teams. College admissions offices have taken note.
Obviously, post-secondary schools examine the individual statistics of applicants as they make decisions but their use of stats is much broader than that. For instance, testing services that publish the SAT and ACT ask survey questions of test takers that they turn around and sell to colleges and universities. So, if I’m a university in the mid-Atlantic and my engineering department wants to extend our reach into the gulf states, I can ask for and purchase a list of high school students in those states who have expressed an interest in engineering, taken at least five high school math classes, and scored at least a 650 on the math portion of the SAT. Then, I can send those students targeted information about my school. This might seem off-putting to some, but I think it’s a good thing. If you want to be an engineer and there’s a school you haven’t heard of out there that trains engineers and that is looking for someone just like you, I think it’s good for you to interact. I always encourage my students to answer those survey questions faithfully and opt-in to data shares the SAT and ACT offer. You’re going to get some more mail in the process but just throw it away if you don’t like it.
Colleges also track what happens at individual high schools. If you are a student from a high school that sends students to a given college regularly, the college has that school figured out. Montana State probably doesn’t know much if anything about the school I work at in Florida, but I’m sure Florida State knows precisely who we are. Colleges are tracking the outcomes of students from specific high schools. Student A could have a 4.4 weighted GPA and solid test scores, student B could have a 4.1 GPA and about the same scores. But, if student A is from a high school where one in three students don’t make it to their junior year at that college because they flunk out, but student B is from a high school whose students have a sterling track record, it’s easy for the college to assume that student B’s high school is doing a better job preparing its students. Therefore, those students might be given more grace in their individual statistics as a result. The stats a college keeps on high schools can be scant or quite robust depending on the philosophy of that admissions department, but rest assured they are all paying a little attention to where you’re from.
Having said all of that, a student usually can’t control what high school they attend and what goes on in that school. All they can do is make the best of what they have. To put it back in baseball terms, the outfields at some high schools are larger than others, all you can do is try to hit home runs in the ballpark you find yourself in.
