To preface my question, I understand that nothing is confirmed/denied with what I’m about to ask, but I’d like your opinion as to the general trend of this concern (since I’m certain most of you are more knowledgeable and wiser than I am when it comes to college admissions).
Let’s start with some hypothetical scenarios that will build up to the ultimate question:
Say you attend a competitive PUBLIC high school, a high school that sees around ~1-3 kids go to the tier-1 schools (HYP, Stan, MIT) each year and ~5-6 kids go to tier-2 (U Penn, Duke, U Chicago, JHU, Berkeley) schools each year.
Say you want to apply to... oh, I don't know, Harvard, and 3-4 other kids also want to apply there.
Say your school rarely sees two kids get into a competitive tier-1 school in the same year (this does not include those who are accepted for a sport)
Say you know someone who presents an extremely strong case for a school such as Harvard (so strong that many people are claiming this person to be a "shoo-in... even though no one can ever say that.")
Say that others have also said that YOU present a strong case for a school such as Harvard.
Say that both of your interests are STEM-related, but one of you leans towards medicine while the other leans towards computer-science/technology.
QUESTION: For select colleges, does the applicant pool from your high school matter in admissions? That is, do these competitive colleges sometimes reject/defer some applicants simply because they already accepted somebody else from that school?
Thank you for your time! Hopefully I made sense. If you need any clarification, please don’t hesitate to ask! I’m very curious about what you all think
Your numbers followed by “Say…” are extremely difficult to read. the answer to your question is NO, top schools have no quotas per se for any school – if the individuals are great, they’ll accept them. This is an often asked question – with fewer words.
The answer to your question is “somewhat”. They don’t reject or defer simply because they have another admit at the same school. However, despite what “someones” and “others” think about your chances, it’s unlikely they know the mind of the committee and, as you have already pointed out, the odds of two from the same school being admitted are small.
So, it may seem to the unsuccessful candidate that they got rejected because their compatriot got in, but it’s much more likely that you just couldn’t perceive where the “cut-off” line between the two of you was.
“Say you attend a competitive PUBLIC high school, a high school that sees around ~1-3 kids go to the tier-1 schools (HYP, Stan, MIT) each year and ~5-6 kids go to tier-2 (U Penn, Duke, U Chicago, JHU, Berkeley) schools each year.”
To consider these Tier 1 and Tier 2 is incredibly pretentious. It already tells me a lot about the high school and it isn’t flattering.
In no known universe are any of these colleges seen as Tier 2.
Sometimes. Any of these schools could fill its incoming classes with all the applications that it receives from HS’s like Andover, Exeter, Stuyvesant, Boston Latin, etc., and yet they don’t. However, none of these schools will reject a talented applicant solely because another applicant has already been accepted.
@Pizzagirl@skieurope I should have looked further into what actually constituted a “Tier 1” or “Tier 2” university, since I don’t exactly understand why we “tier” schools in the first place… The only reason why I attempted to to incorporate them is to give a little more detail about my school. I apologize if my misunderstanding came off as being pretentious. That being said, this means my school has quite a few more kids accepted into First Tier schools each year!!!
And I am PROUD to be a student at my school (not a magnet school, etc. just any other public school). I love the opportunities it offers, I love its teachers, and I love its overall atmosphere. I am fortunate to be attending it, and I couldn’t have asked for a better school!! And just to prevent any further misunderstandings, the person I mentioned in my OP is a really close friend of mine, and I would be beyond excited if they got into Harvard!
And just to prevent any further misunderstandings, the person I mentioned in my OP is a really close friend of mine, and I would be beyond excited if they got into Harvard!