The college admissions process is often both bewildering and frustrating - for us as well as for parents and students. Each year students who seem to us to have everything a college could ever want are passed over by the college of their choice for reasons which seem inexplicable. This year was no different. Overall, however, the results seemed to indicate a growing recognition on the part of colleges of the quality of Herricks students.

Two years ago we started taking a number of steps to strengthen our college applications process. With assistance from Bob Laird, the retired Director of Admissions from the University of California Berkley, we (a) completely revised our school profile last summer to present a clearer picture of Herricks students today (b) radically revised the student transcript so that it could be read quickly and easily and (c) increased our direct visits to colleges.

To track our results we have started keeping a chart of acceptances by Herricks students into various colleges. We decided to use the definitions of one of the college guides used by many districts nationwide. Barron's Profiles of American Colleges groups colleges according to the degree of competitiveness in admissions. The top two groups are defined as "most competitive" and "highly competitive". Barrons defines these groups as follows:

Most Competitive

Even superior students will encounter a great deal of competition for admission to the colleges in this category. In general, these colleges require high school rank in the top 10% to 20% and grade averages of A to B+. Median freshman test scores at these colleges are generally between 655 and 800 on the SAT I and 29 and above on the ACT. In addition, many of these colleges admit only a small percentage of those who apply - usually fewer than one-third. Ivy League colleges and B.S./M.D. programs are included in the Most Competitive grouping.

Highly Competitive

Colleges in this group generally look for students with grade averages of B+ to B and accept most of their students from the top 20% to 35% of the high school class. Median freshman test scores at these colleges generally range from 620 to 654 on the SAT I and 27 or 28 on the ACT. These schools generally accept between one-third and one-half of their applicants.

To provide for finer distinction within this admissions category, a plus (+) symbol has been placed before some entries. These are colleges with median freshman scores of 645 or more on the SAT I or 28 or more on the ACT (depending on which test the college prefers), and colleges that accept fewer than one quarter of their applicants.

Acceptance for Herricks students in each of these categories was as follows:

	Class of 2004	Class of 2005
Most Competitive
Ivy League	12	21
B.S./M.D.	NA	14
Other	60	105
Total	72 plus	140
Highly Competitive
Plus (+)	31	65
Other	257		330
Total	288	395

Increases of this kind will be extremely difficult to come by in future years. The number of students applying to top colleges has increased dramatically over the past several years. Duke, for example, has seen applications jump from 13,000 to 18,000 in just a few years. We believe, however, that Herricks graduates are competitive with students from any high school in the United States and that their achievements deserve wider recognition.