So I’m a little confused about how college admissions works on different levels, like school, regional, or national. On this board, I’ve been told I have a very strong shot at HYPS and other top schools. However, my class at my school is really strong this year and I know of two others who have better stats than me. Will this affect my chance for admission? I guess I’m alluding to a possible quota system. Should I be looking around and comparing to other people at my school, or nationally? Would a college like Harvard that usually excepts 1 person at most from my school not accept 3 one year if we were all strong? I’m just worried that my chances may be jeopardized since we have unusally strong candidates at my school this year.
<p>There was a lot in the Wash Post on this topic last year. This is also covered quite a bit in "The Gatekeepers" by Steinberg, "Admissions Confidential" by Toors, and "Harvard Schmarvard" by Mathews. Basically, extremely qualified applicants do compete with people at their high school, but only at the prestigious high schools. </p>
<p>Adcoms go thru the applicants sorted by order by state and high school name. From a prestigious high school, a collegel may have 30-40 applicants. Colleges want diversity and can't take a significant portion of their freshman class from a single hs. (An exception to this is when an extremely selective college has a feeder school connection with a high school and depends on that high school to provide a certain number of high quality applicants each year. This happens with some of the ivies.) At any rate, if 30 applicants from a single hs apply, they will compare the applicants and pick out the ones they want from the top. They may take several, but they probably won't take as many as they would have if the applicants came from different high schools. One consideration as they do this is not to offend the GC or parents at the high school because they want to continue to have 30 applicants apply each year. Thus, they are careful about who they accept so that it is understandable to the people at the hs. They use lists from previous years, and so a conversation might go: Well we had 32 apply last year, we admitted 8 and only 2 attended. I think we should accept only accept 5 this year. -- At least this is what the above books by actual adcom members say happened while they were adcoms.</p>
<p>In you own case, a hs that is not prestigious with only a few applicants applying would not be affected. I don't think it will affect your chances. The idea that a college will only take one student from a high school is a myth.</p>