<p>If two students from the same high school are applying to the same college and they are both highly qualified, will the college only pick the most highly qualified one? In other words, do colleges compare candidates against the whole pool of candidates or against candidates in the same high school?</p>
<p>DD is very interested in a school, but a classmate of hers with better grades (and similar SAT scores so far) is also applying. Will that diminsh DD's chances?</p>
<p>If she writes a better essay they’d probably accept her. And what makes you think they’d be directly competing anyway? They could both get in or they could both be rejected.</p>
<p>Colleges accept multiple students from a single school all the time. There’s definitely a possibility of her getting in if her friend gets in as well.</p>
<p>Although they may be compared to each other in the context of their school that doesn’t mean one will get in and the other won’t.</p>
<p>No they look at each applicant holistically. Both of them could get in, only one could get in or both could be rejected. At my school, two other people (not including me) in my grade applied to Swarthmore ED and the one with the best grades actually got deferred whereas the two other students (me and someone else) got in because they considered more than just scores and GPA. She was the strongest grades-wise but the two of us were considered more “interesting” so they took us instead. As long as she is strong in every area and stands out as interesting or unique applicant, she does not necessarily have to have the strongest grades of the bunch. She just has to be a strong overall candidate.</p>