<p>Our class is a pretty strong class, so every top college gets lots of applications from my school this year. I'm wondering if colleges (UChicago here) have a limit (of course, an approximate instead of a definite one) to the number of students they accept from the same school?</p>
<p>Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks!</p>
<p>I can’t generalize. Just an anecdotal data if it helps.</p>
<p>My son graduated from a magnet public school rated as one of top 10, and ranked number one for science and technology related issues.</p>
<p>Last year (not my son’s graduating class, since he is a class of 2013), from that school, out of about 60 kids total per year, I heard something like 9 were admitted to Princeton and sometime like 5-7 (don’t recall exactly) were admitted to MIT. Don’t recall exactly: something like that - crazy numbers given how small the whole class is.</p>
<p>But then again, from my son’s year, none got admitted to MIT - this is the class where there were two SAT 2400’s and 5-6 SAT 1600’s from a total class of ~60. My son’s best friend (SAT way above 2350 though not 2400) who worked from high school freshman year on at a prestigious tech firm as a summer intern and whose boss wrote a recommendation letter saying that he is a better programmer and an employee than many of their regular employees was denied (he was also a very well rounded, really great kid!). Meanwhile the year before it was something like 4-5 kids admitted to MIT. </p>
<p>The teachers who told me all this swear that the quality and the level of the kids were more or less the same past several years. And they are all scratching their heads. They said they can no longer predict which kids in any given year will be admitted. </p>
<p>What it means is, at the level of top 10 schools, the difference in competitive candidates’ overall qualifications is not the best predictor. It truly is a crap shoot.</p>
<p>So in short, to answer yours question, i don’t think it’s necessarily yes or no. Do you best and hope for the outcome that will please you.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>PS: my son, a third year at U Chicago, is VERY happy there, and couldn’t possibly imagine any other place where he would be as happy. He truly is blossoming in that environment.</p>
<p>My friend said that an admissions officer told her that only 5-8 people will be admitted from our school…</p>
<p>^ if so, then that’s probably just based on the quality of applicants usually, not necessarily a quota.
So maybe if say, 20 people applied from your school, 5-8 of the them were offered admission, but the other ones simply didn’t make the cut.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Have you asked a single admissions officer? I have heard enough of this ‘my friend said…’ bullpucky to be blatantly honest. UChicago does not have any quotas for regions, schools, countries, counties, etc. Period. End of story.</p>
<p>I was in the top 3% of my high school, and there were many who were more qualified than I was (in terms of test scores, etc). They were outright rejected, and I was accepted over them. (One of them is now at Harvard. She was rejected by UChicago. Another, a current Stanford student, was rejected by UChicago too.) Don’t worry about the numbers as much, and just be yourself on the essay.</p>
<p>I think that, although the admissions committee tries to accept students from diverse geographic locations, they don’t set quotas for how many to take from each school. I asked the same question at another school (MIT) and they said that they don’t compare applicants to others from their school when making decisions. I am inclined to believe that Chicago has a similar policy as two years ago, hardly anyone from my school (a huge school with 100+ Chicago applicants) was accepted, but last year, a whopping thirty one (31!!!) people were accepted. I think that had they set a quota for applicants from my school, they never in a million years would have accepted so many.</p>
<p>UChicago has no quotas. They read and evaluate each application individually, which means that yeah - if 31 students from one school are fantastic, unique and talented, 31 will be offered admission. Don’t worry!</p>
<p>Thanks for your answers! :)</p>
<p>I have a related question, what does it mean if no one from my school has ever been accepted? Only 3-4 apply each year but from naviance I can see that all of the people that have applied were VERY qualified. I attend a very high-ranked public school. My guidance counselor said they’ve just never been able to get any kid into UChicago 
Does this hinder my chances at all?</p>
<p>No. I was the first kid from my school to get in. You’re okay.</p>
<p>Okay. Thanks for the reassurance :)</p>