“So don’t base decisions on how many got in from your hs or state”
You should definitely look at your high school Naviance or similar information early on to figure out your list. I don’t know why people would recommend against doing something like that. It would eliminate in many cases colleges like UNC in favor of UM, UW, UIUC, Purdue et…, which is good.
The data I have, and it’s a small sample because not a lot of kids apply to UNC from local schools but UNC had a lower acceptance rate than MIT and one year, took zero kids from a hs I’m familiar with. This was an especially strong year for that hs, 6 or 7 into MIT, 4 into Cal Tech, but zero for UNC?
" you don’t know their apps."
I know some of their apps, and there is no rational explanation for no one getting into UNC that year except for the OOS quota. Unless you think those kids getting into MIT, Cal Tech, Stanford Harvard, UCB were flukes. And that’s just stem, the non-stem got into Chicago, Georgetown, NU, Brown etc.
BTW, I’m not against the quota, public schools should be fit to operate as they see fit for their residents.