I know he did chat with his friends. My response if someone pressed was that it was his story to tell and we wanted to give him some space to tell it on his own terms. I didn’t ask people where their kids were applying (though I was of course very curious). I just asked how the whole process was going. We had plenty of lovely chats about managing anxiety, the complexities of decisionmaking, various places we’d visited and considered and what we’d thought etc. etc. without comparing precise notes. It felt saner that way. People I know who did constantly cross check on who was doing what seemed to experience the process as more stressful and frenzied.
That makes sense. I am glad I mentioned here because I kind of thought I was being paranoid. I will now be more aware and take a cue from the friends I observed who didn’t want to mention. Thank you for your insight, it is quite helpful.
I think most colleges say they don’t have a limit. But practically speaking, they do come in with an idea of what schools generally produce good kids and what number they “might” admit from them and then how they will yield. (This includes both high and low SES high schools.) But they also have a desire to be fair. If they take an extra few from your school, someone else isn’t getting in. Sure, there are schools were they “like” to take x number annually. But frankly, if another school has an extraordinary applicant, the slot has to come from somewhere. Or a hs they haven’t accepted from lately gets a teeny boost, when the kid/s is/are equally good.
An issue can be when one top performer in one hs is really slightly better than another. Say the #5 kid is a little better than the #2, all around, not just what makes rank. And, at the same time, some kids across town are good, really good. The decisions take some finesse.
At my girls’ small hs, the kids just naturally didn’t speak of their targets. Nor scores. But the GC had a hand in making sure that kids were looking at an appropriate range and not stepping on each other. They all had tremendous excitement for each other, as admits came in. And, except sometimes among close friends, no sense of where others had been rejected. Nice effect.