<p>I sincerely believe that there are no quotas set for a given highschool or region. I think that if there are 40 apps from a highschool, however, all things equal or even not so equal, geographic diversity will come into play, and unless all 40 applicants are clearly head and shoulders above the crowd and happen to be single read type admits, a rare applicant in any group, they are going to be scrutinized and it will be a tough admit for many of them. It is very rare that you get any number of kids that are shoo ins for the more selective schools, and geography always plays somewhat of a rule. What many are not aware of, is that schools in your category and location are often clumped together. Many here think that they are competing against kids in their specific boys' catholic highschool when all of the area highschools are clumped together as a geographic unit. The local differnces between School A and B become minute to college looking at that region, unless one is waay up there and another a school not even on the radar screen. </p>
<p>Unfortunately public statements made by adcoms cannot be taken to heart, since there are PR issues, and many "should be" things said, that are not done on a case by case basis. Stanford may well not bother to look at AP labeled courses or AP test scores; in fact, most schools don't even ask for these scores from College Board, unlike SAT scores, until you are admitted, and then only if you want credit for them. It is not a big item. Many of the top prep schools including the New England ones who feed many kids to HPY have stricken AP designation from their courses. You can take the exam if you want at the end of the year, but often none of your senior course will be AP designated. Those schools are the radar of the top colleges do not need AP designation of courses. Where it can help is if you go to a school not known to a top college, and they are not easily able to assess the difficulty of your courses and your school's curriculum. AP designation, some exam scores from junior year, some classes at known summer programs or local colleges can really boost that applicant in terms of how his grades, class rank and difficulty of course load are assessed. But to say you don't look at SATs when your test results are waaay up there, and the school, Stanford does give athletic scholarship and other EC categories "byes" in academic criteria, is not true. There are too many top students who just don't test well, and they do not get into Stanford, unless they have some real hook. Heck, even the ones who have the test scores, need some hook, too, but they are definitely in the front of the line over those who have the same profile but lower test scores. So it is with any of these Ueber selective schools.</p>