<p>I love in California so naturally a ton of kids will apply to Stanford. I can't decide between Stanford and Princeton to apply to early, but if the fact that almost no one else will apply to Princeton early except me will help me, even marginally, I may apply to Princeton. For example, according to Naviance, only 1 person applied early to Princeton while 18 applied early to Stanford. Does that matter at all to adcoms?</p>
<p>I would apply early to Princeton. Stanford will accept only a handful of students from your school (assuming its normal for students to get in from your school) at most. So the competition at Princeton would be much less. I don’t know about Princeton and Stanford, but I know at Harvard they look at all applications from a particular school at the same time.</p>
<p>Yeah, that’s what I thought too. I guess Princeton it is then!</p>
<p>Colleges do not have a “by school” quota for admission. Eg the number of kids applying to Fancy College X will not affect your specific admission decision. By all means apply to Princeton early if that’s your first choice school -statistically the odds of getting into Princeton SCEA (18.8%) are better than those at Stanford SCEA (10%).
<a href=“http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/college-admissions/7-college-admissions-myths.html”>http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/college-admissions/7-college-admissions-myths.html</a></p>
<p>Yes but surely less kids applying will mean less competition.</p>
<p>@kei04086 1 kid vs 18 kids doesn’t make a difference in an applicant pool of thousands. A majority of those applicants will have great GPAs, SAT/ACT scores, ECs, and essays regardless of which school they come from. Forget about what your classmates are doing and try to make your application stand out in terms of the entire applicant pool. </p>
<p>As the above poster stated, some schools look at all the apps from one school at once. Wouldn’t it be easier to stand out in a group of two than in a group of twenty?</p>
<p>It’s better to apply to a place where less kids are applying. I don’t care what colleges say; the truth is, if there is more than one kid applying to University X from a school, then their apps will be compared. Go with Princeton; you also have the advantage of geography here. Although for some reason, Stanford seems biased towards Cali kids (approx 40% of every incoming class is from Cali). Actually, a couple of CA private schools are like that (I say as I squint at Caltech and USC)</p>
<p>@Violet1996 I’m actually in California so the geography point is irrelevant but yes I agree with you.</p>
<p>Oh my bad, unless you meant I have an advantage at Stanford so I can apply regular, then that makes sense. Good point</p>
<p>The apps aren’t compared in the way you might think. A regional admissions officer (who will actually be looking at all your school’s apps) will be responsible for reading apps from every high school in your region which ammounts to a lot more than your high school’s 20 applicants. They have maybe 15-20min to read each app, make a case, and prepare for the committee meeting. They’ll note your high school, but won’t actively compare you to the rest of your high school’s app pool -simply put they don’t have the time.
Don’t get me wrong; I’d still go with Princeton. But you should know that what your classmates do will have no impact on your decision if you decide to go with Stanford. </p>
<p>@saif235
Have there been any official statements by admissions officers on whether or not applicants are compared with their schoolmates? If it’s true that you are compared with the total applicant pool instead of local, why do kids in disadvantaged schools expected to complete less than those at magnet schools? Why do people say your course rigor should match those of other top students at your school?</p>
<ol>
<li>“So when parents ask ‘Are students from our high school compared directly to one another?’ the answer is-no, they are read against the standard of the region first, then the whole country.” (A is for Admissions by Michele Hernandez Former Assistant Director of Admissions, Dartmouth College)
2-3. When you apply to any Common App school your Guidance Counselor needs to fill out a rec letter form. On this form there is a section that asks the counselor to rate your course rigor relative to what is offered at your high school -something like a 4 or 5 point scale. Kids in disadvantaged schools have less opportunities so their course rigor relative to what is offered to them is different than that of kids who attend magnet schools. Thus your course rigor should match those of the top students at your school because you want your counselor to mark that you took the hardest course load available.<br></li>
</ol>
<p>@kei04086 Unless, you really want Stanford, I would definitely go with Princeton. Top universities like these are definitely aware of the number of students applying from your school and will definitely not take too many. However, they do not have a predetermined quota per high school. But even though they say it’s a myth that you will not be competing from students in your own high school, there is definitely a lot of truth to it. No matter how qualified the students in your high school are, there is no way that all ~20 of them will get accepted if ~20 apply. I highly doubt that even 15 will get in. So they do definitely take into your account your class rank.</p>
<p>@saif235 “Forget about what your classmates are doing and try to make your application stand out in terms of the entire applicant pool.” If @kei04086 is unable to make his/her application stand out in terms of his/her classmates, chances are that his/her application does not stand out from the entire applicant pool.
Also, the top schools for the most part need you to stand out in pretty much every aspect and if you are not standing out in your own school, chances are you will not be admitted. That’s just a fact.</p>
<p>@theeecsadvisor thanks for the input. I agree with you, and I’ve decided to apply to Princeton. </p>
<p>@theeecsadvisor
OP wasn’t asking about how to stand out in his high schools pool, but rather was asking whether or not his classmates’ actions should/would affect his decisions in terms of college admissions. Thus I answered that he should ignore what his classmates’ are doing and focus on his own application.
Of course he should stand out in terms of his own high school’s application pool., but focusing on the stats of 20 other kids will not help his application. Those 20 applicants do not necessarily represent the best of Stanford or Princeton’s applicant pools and thus he should focus on being the best applicant he can be, regardless of his classmates’ actions. Additionally each of those 20 students could stand out in many different ways -one could have a perfect SAT score, another could be a nationally ranked athlete, a third could have won a renown state, national, or international academic competition- and focusing on “standing out” in this environment would prove futile, especially with how subjective admissions are nowadays. In the end -Princeton or Stanford- he will be competing against applicants from all over the world and to have a shot at admission he will have to stand out in the top 10-15% of those highly qualified applicants (in SCEA) and in the top 5% (RD).
Of course if you’d like to scrutinize every semantic of my post be my guest, but my point was just as valid -and much more concise- in the last post. </p>
<p>@saif235 I don’t think you read my post. I am fully aware of what was being asked and what you answered. That’s why I responded by saying that OP should go with Princeton because top universities DEFINITELY look at the number of applicants from your high school and usually will not take many from the same school (although as I mentioned above there is no specific quota). There may be exceptions but usually aren’t. So I don’t think “forget about what your classmates are doing” was the best advice. Admissions is a game and when there is a game, you need the right strategy. If 20 people from OP’s high school are applying to Stanford (and most or even some of them are more qualified than OP) while only 1 is applying to Princeton, the better strategy is applying to Princeton and not Stanford (considering that OP has no preference between these schools). I’ve played the game before. I know how to play this game and win. And it seems like OP has listened to my input.</p>
<p>I agree w/Saif. Applying to schools like P or S, where one will be compared to 1000s of other SCEA applicants, it really boils down to the strength of the individual applicant. Upon first read, will there be a “wow” factor? For the VAST majority of applicants, SCEA or RD, the answer will be NO. My local (well-ranked FWIW) HS got an anomaly of admits to my HYP college one year. Then zeroed the next 3 years. From my experience, it boils down to the strength of the individual applications. It’s not as if the regional admissions officer pulls all the files from the one school and reads them in one setting. Plus, like Saif said, each applicant will have vie for different “slots”. One might be a genius math kid, another a super musician. Whereas OP might be a super theater prodigy. It won’t matter if all three are from the same HS. There are thousands of competitors.</p>