Are you compared with your classmates or overall nationwide?

<p>My schools fairly competitive and the class above me, the current graduating class, is exceptionally good. They've had 11 Cal Techs 8 MITs and 4 likely letters to Yale, all of which are records.</p>

<p>For some reason, however, in my (and many others') opinion, my class, the class of 2015 is not that shining. For reference, there were 11 AIME qualifiers from grade below us and 9 from the one above us but only 2 from my grade. Other aspects seem less extravagant than normal as well. Does this help a prospective student since he "shines" more among his classmates, or does it not really affect it at all?</p>

<p>Wow. I’m in the class of 2015 and our class at our school is just not that shining either. It’s the same at all of our other local schools as well. I swear 2015 is just universally not an exceptional class. Hopefully that makes it easier for us next year, but probably not.</p>

<p>And I don’t know how much it would help. For schools that compare students in school blocks, then it’ll definitely help if he’s better than his classmates. For those that don’t, it’ll help that he’s ranked higher. But you definitely go to a way more competitive school than I do.</p>

<p>Last year we only had 2 acceptances to Cornell, 1 to UChicago, 2 to Notre Dame, 1 Vanderbilt, and 1 Dartmouth. This year, we have 1 Harvard, 1 Duke, 1 Emory, and 2 Notre Dame. I’ll have to see how the Seniors fair during the RD round on Thursday. But so far, its definitely a more accomplished class than previous years.</p>

<p>It generally won’t matter. It has a lot more to do with how you stack up against the whole applicant pool and how you make yourself stand out that affects your admissions, not how you stack up against the tiny pool in your high school (tiny compared to the pool of applicants to top colleges).</p>

<p>To some degree, you are compared with your classmates, as it does give them a gauge to judge you against. It can tell them the overall quality of your HS and how you rank, what an A really means at your school, what the typical students takes, does every rec letter read the same, etc. But you’re also judged against everyone else as well, within limits. You generally won’t be held responsible for classes your school didn’t offer, but standardized tests are the same for everyone.</p>

<p>Also, don’t judge a class until you see their final numbers. No one though much of our HS class last year, and they wound getting into all but one Ivy, plus multiples into Stanford, Chicago, MIT, Michigan, etc.</p>

<p>I see.
Also, like I’ve said, I attend a fairly competitive school that regularly sends ~10 kids to the Ivy-level schools, and the neighborhood has a suburban middle class feel. However, my family makes only ~35k. Will colleges discount my low income status since I live in a relatively well-off area? We do live in a small 2-bed room apartment but I don’t think the colleges are going to know that</p>

<p>Based on your various postings, it does not look like you live in particularly disadvantaged circumstances, so you may not have as good “overcoming adversity” stories to write in your essays as those from more disadvantaged situations.</p>

<p>@ucbalumnus
Yes I understand that.If I choose to write a different one from the disadvantage essay for the Common App, will they just assume my low income status has not been much of an adversity? Truth be told, I was not born into “poverty” our family has gotten to our current income levels due to personal incidents that have occurred in the last ~5 years</p>

<p>@kei04086: you should seriously consider <a href=“http://www.questbridge.org”>www.questbridge.org</a> – this gives a tremendous boost for hi performing low income students. It requires a lot of work but I cannot emphasize the benefits enough. Good luck</p>

<p>The QudstBridge data suggests only a small percentage of finalists are Asian. Is this purely correlation because fewer Asian Americans come from disadvantageous backgrounds, or is QB more reluctant to pick Asians since we’re an overrepresented minority?</p>

<p>I frankly think it’s a marketing thing. If more Asian kids from un-resourced backgrounds knew about the advantages of QBridge, more would apply. I interviewed a Bengali student, who was a QB finalist, who got into my (rather choosy) alma mater back in early December. His ethnic group certainly isn’t favored but there he was – with and admit letter into an HYP on Dec 2nd.</p>

<p>I’m not positive but I don’t think ethnicity is explicitly targeted whatsoever in QB. Lots of white kids becoming finalists</p>

<p>I see. Do you know what’s considered more important? Academic achievements or economic background? If I’m academically sound but not as disadvantaged as some of the other applicants, would I be considered not needing QB?</p>

<p>Given two applicants with similar achievements and coming from similar current family income backgrounds, it is likely that the admissions readers will see the one who came from the more disadvantaged background as being the actual higher achiever. Consider it similar to how if two runners crossed the finish line at the same time, the one who had to start behind, or had to run through rocks and gravel instead of smooth track, would be seen as the faster one.</p>

<p>For QB, if you fall under a threshold, you’re eligible. They aren’t looking at who is more poorer than the next person.</p>