Does Penn Compare Students from the Same School During ED?

Title says it all…
Also, my school does not rank, so how would that affect this

I can’t imagine why any school wouldn’t. Their objective is to see how you rate within your school. Apart from the GC report, the relative merits of people from the same school would be very probative.

I’m sure they do, but it’s not like they will only accept one student per school, urban legend to the contrary.

Will different college choice play a role somehow? Like three kids apply from the same HS, two applying for Wharton, one to SEAS, how will the AO review the applications? Compare all three, or compare more between the two to Wharton?

bump

i think all applicants from my school including me are applying to CAS

no one really knows for sure. with regards to whether the specific school within Penn matters, the answer is it depends . Like if most people from your school apply to CAS and you apply to SEAS or Wharton in order to minimize the competition but you are not really interested in engineering or business and that shows in your profile, then i am not so sure you would be better off. Would you say the other ppl applying to penn from your school are more/less/as competitive as you?

@Penn95 I would say they are as competitive if not more than me, one is a legacy and the others have some stellar ECs, if not as good test scores

If they actually want you all, Penn is not going to accept only 2/5 applicants because they’re from the same school. Some of the elite public and private schools send 10-15 kids to places like Penn, Princeton and Columbia. They don’t have an issue taking massive cohorts of kids from the same school as long as they’ll all contribute to the class in a unique way.

From what I’ve seen, the undergrad school to which you apply won’t matter much. Some years way more kids from my high school apply to Wharton than CAS or Engineering and, lo and behold, more kids are accepted to Wharton than the other two schools. In other years, it’s the opposite. If you are an applicant that Penn wants, they won’t care who else is applying from your high school…

Google the Daily Pennsylvanian, 34th street magazine. Cover story on the Pipeline to Penn. Penn matriculated 15 students from Andover this year. That means (likely - I’m guessing) they accepted more than 15, likely quite a few more who may have chosen other schools. Its not an unusual number from Andover at Penn. My point is it would not appear that Penn doesn’t arbitrarily put limits just because many kids from one school apply. Why would they? If their goal is to matriculate the best possible class, I would think artificial limits like students per school would hinder that effort.

Andover may not be a good example, Philips Academy is the elite private school and a feeder school to Harvard and other Ivies. . The school sends large numbers of students to every Ivy every year.

I think some of the confusion is caused by the OP choice of words.

The OP asked, “Does Penn compare students from the same school during ED?”

Answer: Yes they do that. They are interested in whether you are in the top 2%, 5%, 10% or 50%. It isn’t the only factor, but it is a factor. The also probably know how students in various statistical ranges from your school have performed at Penn. If prior admits from your school with similar stats to yours have been outstanding Penn students, that will help you. In contrast, if most of them dropped out after one semester, that will be a negative.

What I think the OP means is, “Does Penn compare applicants from the same school during ED?”

Answer: No, not directly. If they have multiple outstanding applicants from the same school, they may accept several. If the adcom believes that you are a good fit for Penn, the fact that there happen to be 4 applicants with even stronger applications from your school will not matter. That would serve to discourage outstanding applicants. The adcom wants to build the best class and the bar is high, but if you can clear it, go for it!