<p>Do admission officer's compare your stats to those of the students in your school?</p>
<p>Depends on the college and the high school. For some Ivies, they admit by large regional areas. Your competition isn't the kids in your school but you're vying for the several hundred slots amongst the several thousand apps in your geographic area. This may ease your fear that someone in your school is a tad nose ahead of you in some metric. That's not that huge a deal as far as I know amongst schools that holistically admit students.</p>
<p>For example: let's say student A has 2250 SATs and 4.0GPA. While Student B has 2200 SATs and 3.9GPA. Both took their school's most rigorous offerings. There's probably not a single that BOTH students aren't QUALIFIED to attend based upon those two metrics.</p>
<p>Then it goes to the intangibles. And that's what's going to distinguish the two -- not the few statistical slivers.</p>
<p>Yes, colleges receive your high school's profile. I think what's on it differs a little from HS to HS, though.</p>
<p>Many schools do not rank. They send in school's profile instead. As an example, they will look at how many kids get As and Bs in your AP class, and look at how many kids in your AP class get 5 or 4 on their examins to determine value of As and Bs in that class. Some schools will also include profile of previous graduating classes - what colleges they send their graduates to.</p>