<p>know which students attend the same school if it gets tens of thousands of applicants? I mean, they don't dig through those many applications to find people of the same school, do they? It sounds like a chancy thing...</p>
<p>Your regional officer is in charge of your app so he/she is familiar with the area’s applicants.</p>
<p>Mmost people I met in college had a choice between Yale and at least one other top school, so I don’t know if it’s completely chance (although that does play a role).</p>
<p>All the applications are in a computer data base and I’m sure they could type in such and such school to check how many applicants there are (not that it necessarily affects your chances).</p>
<p>^ They know. Some college counselors know admissions officers in their region and sometimes they discuss applicants with counselors. That’s why my counselor sometimes much knows before decision date whether his students have been accepted.</p>
<p>Tristan is correct. An admissions officer is assigned to your region and is therefore familiar with your school and would know how many people from said school applied. I’m sure there’s also some way electronically that they can cross reference all applicants by any criteria they want.</p>
<p>Yes, I bet they throw all applicants in a database so they can sort them by whatever metric they like.</p>