I was wondering about this, especially for some of the private universities with mid-smaller student body sizes. I heard that there is a cap per each high school and I wanted to know if I am competing against applicants that are applying to different colleges within the same university.
Thanks!
I do not think that you should worry about it.
Some universities do not admit by major. Others do admit by major. However, I have never heard of a “cap per each high school”.
If you are applying to a very highly ranked university (Harvard, MIT, Stanford, …) then you will be competing with a very long list of very strong students. If you are applying to most other schools, there will be enough spots to admit many strong students from your high school if you are all otherwise qualified.
Make sure that you are applying to at least two affordable safeties. Keep your budget in mind. Figure out what YOU want in a university. You should do fine.
A lot of what people “hear” is wrong. This is one of those things.
Admitting as a whole, admitting by college, or admitting by major/program is school dependent - there are many schools that do each.
A “cap per each high school” is unlikely to be the formal policy of any college, but there could be a soft limit if the college considers class rank heavily. For example, it may be difficult for much more than 6% of a Texas high school class to get admitted to UT Austin.