<p>Well how do you know that Student B’s essays and recommendations don’t outshine you and impress admissions more? It’s more than just about grades and scores.</p>
<p>^ This. With such a (relatively) short period of time left until decisions are released, you retracting your application probably wouldn’t have any real impact on whether Student B will be admitted or not. The only way I could see your decision having any effect either way is if Student B ends up being waitlisted, and even then, I’d imagine that the impact on their chances would be minuscule. Of course, as far as I know, none of us are admissions officers, so we don’t know definitively, but I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to think that it’s all pretty much said and done by this point.</p>
<p>Too late for that, and yeah Student B will be at a slight disadvantage based on stats, however, his/her essays, recommendations, and personal story may more than make up for that. At this level, you can’t predict what the admissions office wants in an applicant, because most people who apply are qualified to attend and would do well in the environment; beyond that the only criteria are whether the admissions office thinks those students would add something to Rice’s community and would be able to take advantage of the resources and opportunities Rice provides. Thus, having a statistically “better” application doesn’t mean much, and for all we know, Student B might have been accepted and Student A might not have gotten in at all. It’s a crapshoot, really. One year they want a baseball player, the next year a mathlete.</p>
<p>A real-life instance: I was ranked 6/425 in my high school upon college application season. The valedictorian and salutatorian both applied to Rice, and although their test scores were slightly lower than mine, their GPAs and extracurriculars were a lot stronger in the typical sense of those aspects (granted, I had a 4.0 UW and all, so I’m just speaking relatively). The valedictorian got rejected and the salutatorian got waitlisted, while I got in. On the other side of the spectrum, a guy a few ranks below me, who is an absolute genius with equivalent GPA/test scores/etc, also got waitlisted. So you can never really guess what admissions will do based on your app alone, honestly.</p>
<p>Moral of the story: Student B may or may not be at a disadvantage, and withdrawing your app–even if it wasn’t too late–would not necessarily help. Don’t worry about it, what happens happens.</p>
<p>Even if you’re probably not going to attend the school you’ve applied to, it’s not your moral obligation to improve the chances of your classmates by not applying or by withdrawing your applications.</p>
<p>You have every right and responsibility to give yourself the best shot you can at getting into a school you’re going to be happy with, which means you’re completely justified into applying to as many schools as you want to regardless of whether your peers are also applying.</p>
<p>I turned down many schools that I was accepted to and that my classmates had at the top of their lists but were rejected from. That’s life. It wasn’t my responsibility to harm my chances in the interests of accommodating someone else’s. If my application was better, so be it–I earned that.</p>
<p>Plus, you don’t even know whose application is better without the admissions committee’s decision. Too much of it is subjective.</p>