<p>Do colleges see the other schools you're applying to? And, if so, will they take that into account when evaluating you? Like...if you were overqualified for one school, and they saw that you had applied to a few better schools and thought you weren't likely to enroll if you were accepted, would they deny you application?</p>
<p>no for all of your questions.</p>
<p>The only way that a college will know what other colleges you are applying to is if you tell them, and the only setting in which you're likely to tell them is an interview. Alumni interviewers sometimes do ask students what other schools they are applying to. In this case, it might be a good idea to mention only similarly selective or less selective schools -- meaning that you can tell the interviewer from Wash U that you're applying to Emory or Michigan, say, but you probably don't want to tell him that you applied Early Action to Yale.</p>
<p>Sometimes applications will ask where else one is applying to, but answering is optional. Answering in interviews is optional, too! I've always heard it is best to demur. My daughter simply told interviewers she didn't care to divulge where else she had applied.</p>
<p>I've certainly heard of people denied admission to schools to which they were overqualified.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Like...if you were overqualified for one school, and they saw that you had applied to a few better schools and thought you weren't likely to enroll if you were accepted, would they deny you application?
[/quote]
this is possible. it's called the Tufts Syndrome.</p>
<p>Isn't that when they waitlist the overqualified?</p>
<p>it's possible that they reject you outright, although the common step would be the wailitst.</p>
<p>I think that in many cases "Tufts syndrome" (which would much more accurately be called WUStL syndrome) is exaggerated, especially if one bothers to look at the results threads at Tufts, et al. Yield is no longer calculated into the US News rankings, so it does not make sense in terms of boosting a rank. The long-term effect would be a dumbing down of the class due to admitting moderately qualified students, so that doesn't make much sense either. I attribute it largely to students who do not put a lot of effort into those applications or do not show enough interest in that college.</p>