<p>Hi, I was just wondering if admission committees in general looked at applications from the same high school together and limit the number of acceptances from your school, or is it totally mixed up. I heard they separate in regions, but I am not sure. Does anyone know how this works?</p>
<p>They have initial readers by region who brings it to the committe (or a committee depending on the volume of applications).
Most colleges take students they think will fit into their school nicely without regard to how many other students they are taking in the given year. However, the few most selective colleges usually never accept more than one or two students from a school in a given year. There are high schools that are exceptions - most of them elite prep/private schools.
These colleges express a desire to create a well-rounded, diverse incoming class.</p>
<p>I'm applying to Bowdoin, and I was talking to the football coach. I go to a top 3 elite prep school, and he said that I am basically ONLY competing against the 30 kids who applied from my school. But I believe that this is an exception, at your average public or private school, you're not really competing against your class.</p>
<p>Three people from my school got into MIT ED, so I'd say you don't really have to worry. IMO, if you can't compete w/ people at your school, you're not going to be that competitive with the nation.</p>
<p>In the book Gatekeepers, the adcoms at Wesleyan do/did review the files of all the students applying from a particular school on the same day... for some schools this can be as many as 20 applicants. There was no quota but typically they accepted 5-7 out of 18 from this one LA prep school.</p>
<p>I think that the regional admissions officer will compare applications at a particular school in order to determine if an applicant took the hardest courses available and what the extracurricular offerings were. However, I think afterward, when the regional admissions officer gives the best applications to the whole adcom, school doesn't matter.</p>
<p>Kermit wrote: "However, the few most selective colleges usually never accept more than one or two students from a school in a given year. There are high schools that are exceptions - most of them elite prep/private schools."</p>
<p>The HS in my district had four admits to Yale last year -- they typically admit 0-2 any given year. Certainly it was a statistical anomaly (given Yale's ~9% admit rate). Also, the two public high schools in Ann Arbor (with the U-Mich influence) routinely admit gobs -- certainly over the Kermit's "two maximum" assertion.</p>
<p>Princeton High School is famous for sending dozens of the unqualified to Princeton</p>
<p>Like I said, there are exceptions, and Michigan wouldn't be one of those colleges I was speaking about. Yes, Yale can admit more students from a single school in a given year if they are compelling enough. But, for the most part, they don't.
They are recruiting worldwide, and Yale already has schools they prefer to take students from year-in and year-out. For all those other schools, you're lucky to get one and three would be very rare.
The size of the school also plays a factor. New Trier HS in Illinois, an elite public with graduating class of around 1,000, is a much different story than my private school with a graduating class of abuot 50.
Is there competition? Yes. Is it a big factor? Not really.
If you're Yale quality and someone they want, you get in.</p>