<p>The idea of the "top 10%" isn't so much how much you have learned, but rather how competitive you are among your peers. </p>
<p>The rules about "being a URM is the same as adding 200 points to your SAT score" and things like that don't strike me as the way it works. I think the process is more holistic. </p>
<p>People from competitive high schools have higher stats either because of their socioeconomic advantages or because they had to compete to get into the school. Competitive high schools also have better teachers and facilities. Actually, going to a competitive high school can hurt you because a large number of students from the small high school will apply to the same extremely selective college. The college can't take a very large number of students from the same high school, and so the applicants compete among themselves and the class rank is important. For example, 40 may apply to Harvard and Harvard may take 5, but if they were spread out across more high schools, Harvard might have taken 10.</p>