Does Stanford look at students from your school from past years?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Stanford University
1

<p>I live in a fairly big city for my state(Kentucky), although its quite small compared to New York. Every year we have a couple people get into Stanford in my city, so its not that uncommon. I knew someone 2 years ago who went to the same school as me who got in. I asked my counselor to compare my stats with his, and we're almost the same(same school rankings, same race, national merit, similar scores, EC, etc). However, my GPA and class rigor is slightly higher. Still, I couldn't see his essays, so I can't exactly relate my own chances of admission with his. Plus, there are different people applying this year, and probably more competition. </p>

<p>Nevertheless, since this person is from the same school as me and has similar stats, would the adcom take it into consideration at all? If not, at least I have some comfort in that I have a realistic chance at Stanford.</p>

2

<p>Don't think they would care much about previous students from your school (unless that person had had a negative impact or something).</p>

3

<p>I think they definitely look at previous students from your schools. How well the do at stanford compared to their grades at your school.</p>

4

<p>really? That's good news, hopefully our similarity will boost my chances a little.</p>

5

<p>What if no one from your school has ever gone to Stanford? Would that hurt my chances-- Maybe they don't trust my school's grading system and ability to prepare kids for college?</p>

6

<p>I heard from an admissions officer myself that the acceptance of applicants from past years DOES matter. This is closely related to your high school profile - which is paramount in considering your overall application. Using my school as an example, seven kids (out of 130) went to stanford last year alone, five the year before - this is no coincidence.</p>

7

<p>Damn. All of you guys go to such good schools, if you get into any college here it's an accomplishment. We did get one into Stanford a couple years ago, so I guess there's some hope.</p>

8

<p>1 from my school went in the past 9 years and I have know clue how he did there. Hope he did well!</p>

9

<p>my school’s new, as in, its an old instituition that only recently started the IB. so no one has ever applied/ got in. the plus point is, ive already graduated and taking a gap year, so my final grades are directly from the IB.
is that ok?</p>

10

<p>They don’t CARE. If you have the stats you’re in. However, there are some sort of quotas. Regional admission officer usually deal with that. Private high schools i.e. Philip Academy always has a lot of students getting into Stanford.</p>

11

<p>My NYC hs has a pretty good track record for sending students to Stanford. The fact that our alumni have generally done well at Stanford definitely helps our students. At the very least, it gives Stanford a more reliable way to assess our hs gpa and curricula.</p>

12

<p>I have talked to someone from the admissions office a number of times in the past. Stanford, like all elite schools, keeps a rating of most high schools around the country. They occasionally reference it when some appealing candidate comes from a school they are not familiar with.</p>

<p>It is an interesting question whether Stanford updates their high school files based on the grades and success of admitted students. I never inquired about that. </p>

<p>My common sense guess is that if a high school has two or three students admitted over the last five years, there is too little data to make any conclusion. If one student did well and another student did average, are you going to conclude anything from that about the next student? I don’t think it is meaningful.</p>