<p>Are applicants often judged based on their school and rejected because there is a more qualified applicant from their school, even if both are very qualified?</p>
<p>Not that I know of. They 'only' compare your to your high school profile... Or thats what they said at their little seminar thing.</p>
<p>also, they claim not to compare applicants, even from the same school. It depends more on your own specific opportunities and how you've taken advantage of them/created new opportunities I think. So if you are more qualified than another person because your parents can pay for everything, that's one thing. If you're more qualified because you've created opportunities for yourself, you won't necessarily be judged next to another person from your school, but that resourcefulness or whatever is going to come through... at least, this is my understanding of it, I could be totally off</p>
<p>There were two of us applying from my high school, and the other guy was, in my opinion, more qualified than I was. Our high school was a regular Midwestern public school, and had never sent anybody to MIT before (and, come to think of it, had never or exceedingly rarely sent anyone to any top school, except perhaps as an athletic recruit). </p>
<p>We both got in.</p>
<p>Two kids from my son's HS (including my son) were accepted this year EA. He was then told that they were the only acceptees in the entire county (tens of HS's). I don't think MIT or other elite schools uses school quotas, county quotas, etc. any more, if they ever did; schools are competing for terrific students too.</p>
<p>I know two people from my high school last year got accepted to MIT. One whose sister is now applying and one girl from my psych class. And those are just the ones I know; maybe a couple more people managed to get in. I know there are at least 4 applicants this year, though, including myself. I wonder how THAT will turn out...</p>