<p>According to some threads, applicants from same schools are not "directly" compared but "regionally" compared (e.g. all upper middle-class applicants from suburban New Jersey, or all Asians from metropolitan southern California, etc)</p>
<p>Others claim that students are only compared within their "niche" (e.g. all math-loving pianists)</p>
<p>Can anyone clarify this? How exactly are applicants of the same school compared?</p>
<p>Often times, top tier schools will only accept a certain amount of people from a certain school…via historical trends (Usually a guidance counselor can tell you fairly easily the amount of kids that end up at Ivy’s and such each year). If they accept 2 kids from your school usually, they will look at the entire student profile of those in your school who applied to that particular college and will chose the 2 best candidates as a whole. I am not entirely sure about the regional or niche comparison because it brings in too many variables and tasks that I just don’t see many colleges dealing with.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure you’re not compared with others at your school, but rather with others in your geographic region (i.e. all applicants from NC, SC, TN, GA), and then compared against the whole applicant pool if you make it to final committee meetings.</p>
<p>I think it depends on the high school. If it’s a nationally recognized high school or high performing in terms of ap exams, they’re going to compare you to other students in your school. I don’t remember which book but they were quoting high school guidance counselors at such schools who were trying to steer kids to different colleges because they knew that already had too many kids applying to college X and those at the lower end of the pool wouldn’t get in.</p>