Me and another student from my high school are both applying early decision to an ivy but they are almost guaranteed to get in as their parent is a professor there. We are both very similar as far as stats, ecs, etc. and will both graduate in the top 5 of our school. Am I in any way disadvantaged? If top universities do have a quota, does anyone have any idea what the number could be? Our high school is in a suburb in the Midwest.
There is no min/max/quota per high school, but it’s also unlikely to vary dramatically from year to year.
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No, and in fact you can see the lack of such a policy at the high schools that regularly send kids to such colleges. Individual colleges will admit different numbers from the same high school depending on the year, and it is fairly obvious a function of how many kids with the right numbers and other criteria apply.
So if it is rare for a given HS to have two kids admitted to one such college, it is likely more a function of it being rare for two kids they want to admit applying to one such college, and not any sort of policy against admitting two such kids if they do apply. And if in fact two kids a college both wants apply in one year, then they will admit both. Whenever that actually happens.
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No, why would they?
Many people here, including me, have repeatedly written - colleges are not trying to be “fair”. Admissions to colleges are based on what the colleges wants and needs. There is absolutely no benefit to any college to limit the number of students who they accept from any particular high school.
In fact, the opposite is often true - they take too many from some high schools.
The reason that they usually take only one from most high schools is that, unless a high school has connections with these “elite” colleges and/or is full of “hooked” kids, a kid has to be absolutely outstanding in multiple ways for any of these “elite” colleges to consider that kid. It’s unlikely that any “regular” high school will have more than one of these each year. Sometimes you do. In my kid’s cohort, three kids were accepted to Stanford, and none of them had any sort of “hook”, nor is the high school population full of wealthy families. Most years, nobody attends Stanford.
If the college likes your application, you will be accepted, whether or not your classmate is also accepted.
The other student’s application and its fate will have no more effect on the fate of your application that any other similar applicant from any other high school.
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