There is an Oprah show where she sent a crew to two schools. Harper High School in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood, and Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville (west suburb of Chicago). I was stunned and saddened by the conditions at Harper. The desks looked like they were from the '60s; they wanted to have a band program but didn't have nearly enough instruments; kids who qualified for AP courses had to travel to another school; the pool was empty and the benches in the boys' weight room were patched together with duct tape. Neuqua is a pretty typical suburban high school, loads of accelerated and AP classes, gym, pool, band and choir, sports, arts. Oprah then had some kids from each school visit the other school. The kids from Neuqua were shocked at what they saw and wanted to know how students could do well with what they had. The kids from Harper - well, you could have knocked them over with a feather.

A couple of years ago, one of the Chicago aldermen tried to register a group of Chicago public high school students up at New Trier, which is one of the best, if not the best, high schools in the state.

What I want to know is - colleges want a diverse student body, but how can a student from Harper do as well as someone from Neuqua or New Trier? Are colleges holding students from the best schools to higher admissions standards? How can two dissimilar schools prepare students to the same ability?

How do high schools assess whether a student is college material or not, and what do they do for those who are not?