If someone else from my school (especially if it’s an unimpressive public school) gets accepted, would that affect my chances?
On one of their blog posts they say they say each applicant stands on their own and they don’t take school or region into account, but wouldn’t an applicant not look too great if someone from their school (with roughly similar opportunities) was more impressive than them?
This is discussed many times, and often answered by MIT adcoms.
Here’s one reply from http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/december_questions_omnibus_1
Don’t try to read between the lines. At some point, you really need to just take what they say at face value. It’s not like you can do anything about it.
For most schools, other students applying from your school gives adcons a better perspective for evaluating your application. They can put it in context. MIT is MIT. I’d trust what they say. I would not say this about many other schools but MIT is low on gamesmanship and strives to be as transparent as possible. How other colleges avoid following suit is beyond me. No common app at MIT! Why don’t other schools follow?
I don’t think that other applicants would affect your chances. I applied EA to MIT, and I was 99.99% sure that I wouldn’t be accepted because there were so many brilliant applicants out there, including ones in my school. They had higher grades than me, did Student Council, were athletic stars, etc. I thought for sure I had no chance because they were “more impressive”. But a boy and I were both accepted from the same high school. I think if you’re worried that other applicants seem to be more amazing, you should remember that everyone’s experiences are unique, so it’s hard to compare them with each other. Other people’s accomplishments shouldn’t undermine your own.
Sorry, poor wording on my part. I guess I meant to ask a slightly different question, so ignore my original one. I believe them when they say that they don’t directly compare applicants from the same school. They do look at applicants in context of their background though, so I was wondering more along the lines of if someone from your school (w/o an incredibly unique background) looks better compared to you, if that suggests that you didn’t take advantage of the resources you had as much I guess…
Obviously no one knows this for sure, but I just feel like that would make sense.
To be honest, I’ve never thought of that before. Though I suppose it makes sense to some degree, I think that you shouldn’t worry about not taking advantage of resources. The important thing is that you did what you cared about, so you might’ve used different resources than the person accepted at your school, even if that person used more resources. Plus, apps are in already, right? My advice is to just enjoy being finished with college apps and do something fun 