April 2, 2004 - Shaker Heights High School is one of the nation's top feeder schools for admission to the most selective colleges and universities, according to a survey by The Wall Street Journal.

Published in the Journal's Weekend section on April 2, the survey identified 65 public and private high schools that send the most students to 10 highly selective colleges, including seven Ivy League schools. Shaker was the only school in Ohio, public or private, to make the list. See the list of top feeder schools and the accompanying article. (Note: If you have difficulty downloading the list, go to www.adobe.com and download the Acrobat Reader Update 6.0.2)

More than half of the schools identified as top feeders are private schools charging tuitions ranging from $12,050 (Punahou School in Honolulu) to $31,125 (St. Paul's in Concord, N.H.), with most in the $20,000-per-year range. More than half of the schools are in the metropolitan New York, Boston, and Washington areas.

Of the 28 public schools on the list, six are selective magnet schools and 22, including Shaker, are comprehensive high schools that serve all students in their communities.

To arrive at its list, the Journal studied this year's freshman classes at seven Ivy League schools -- Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell, and Brown - and three highly selective colleges in other areas of the country:   Pomona, the University of Chicago, and Duke. The newspaper compiled a list of the students' high schools and identified those that sent the most students to the 10 colleges. According to the Journal's data, 22 members of Shaker's Class of 2003, or 6% of the class, matriculated at one of the 10 colleges on the list. (See Shaker's college admission data.)

The list appears just as this year's seniors are receiving notice of their college acceptances. According to Eileen Blattner, chair of the guidance department at Shaker Heights High School, this year's senior class is exceptionally strong, continuing Shaker's tradition of a high rate of admission to selective colleges. The Class of 2004 produced 25 National Merit Semifinalists, the largest number in Ohio and the most in Shaker in 25 years.