South Side High School's seniors meet with success

According to South Side High School Principal Dr. Carol Burris, it has been an extraordinary year for college acceptances.

"Our students were admitted to the most highly competitive schools in the nation," she said, "including Cornell, Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, Brown, Princeton, Dartmouth and Columbia. A number of our students had multiple admissions to these schools. That's unusual.

"Our students have also been accepted by many other highly competitive schools all over the country, such as Northwestern, Haverford, U.C. Berkeley, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Johns Hopkins, Skidmore, Tufts, the University of Virginia, Wesleyan, Duke, Georgetown, Hamilton, and even McGill University in Canada," Burris added. "In addition, many of our students were admitted to the fine public colleges of New York state, including SUNY Binghamton, Geneseo, University at Albany and Stony Brook.

"Wherever our students choose to go, we know that we're sending them with the skills that they need to be successful," she said.

So far this year, the "delight index" — the percentage of students who get into their first choice of college — has been calculated by the school's guidance department at 77 percent, which is somewhat higher than it has been in recent years.

Burris attributed the good admissions news this year to several factors, but first and foremost is the quality of the students. "The class of 2010 is an outstanding class filled with dedicated students," she said. "I think that the rising status of the International Baccalaureate program among colleges and universities has [also] been very helpful to our students in the admissions process."

Burris also noted the national publicity the school has received in the past few years. "South Side High School's ranking in the national lists compiled by Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report may also have had an impact on our students' success this year," she said.