<p>These are the four schools with which Harvard has the largest admit overlap, and in each case Harvard wins the lion's share of the cross-admits.</p>
<p>In other words, when these schools compete head-to-head for desirable candidates, Harvard generally "wins".</p>
<p>So Harvard - more than any other school, tends to get the students it wants, and it wants the best. Of course, it has concurrent aims as well, including the requisite complement of athletes, and achieving ethnic, cultural, racial, economic and geographical "diversity" - and also favors candidates perceived to possess desirable personal qualities.</p>
<p>This means that Harvard does not always take candidates with the highest SAT scores, for example. It could, if it wished, fill its class twice over with valedictorians, or twice over with applicants who got an 800 on the Verbal SAT I, the Math SAT I, or both.</p>
<p>So when I say "best", what I really mean, I guess, is the pick of the litter.</p>
<p>You might get a sense of how the head to head competition goes by reading this Stanford story, captioned: "We offered, they declined: Many admits choose other prestigious universities". </p>
<p>Among elites, Stanford had the second-highest yield rate for the Class of 2008, after Harvard.</p>