[Need Advice] How much does classmate competition affect chances?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>My school is a really mediocre parochial private school. It's strong in the humanities such as English and History, but weak in STEM. Generally, 2-3 people get into "good" schools (Ivies or MIT) each year, and the rest go to schools like Providence and Marist. </p>

<p>For some reason, many people are getting into good schools this year. I think that my year is just unusually competitive. My advantage in this school is that I have the highest standardize test score of my year, but not the highest GPA, but it is still +4.0 weighted. (My school inflates GPA from freshman year through honors classes, in which eligibility was determined by a test that I winged, so I was not in honors classes freshman year. ) My other advantage is that I am interested in STEM (and I'm female) while the majority (maybe 75%) are aiming to study the humanities or social sciences. </p>

<p>My main concern is that my year has a person who is very smart and is African American, and because of that, he's getting accepted into HYP (not all of them yet). In contrast, I'm Asian, so this puts me at a major disadvantage in terms of affirmative action. While I want to apply to HYP, I think that I will be rejected because this person will take the spots, and my school is mediocre with only a few people getting accepted into Ivies (and by Ivies, I mean Ivies such as Cornell and Brown, not HYP). I highly doubt HYP will accept two people from the same small mediocre school even though we intend to study completely different disciplines. (He intends to pursue pre-law). </p>

<p>I'm not saying that this person got accepted ONLY because he is African American; he is actually very intelligent and has good grades, but in truth, my grades are better. </p>

<p>So to my main point: I want to apply to a certain Ivy that has already accepted him. I don't know if i should apply to this school or not. I don't feel confident in my stats because I'm Asian. I think that although my stats are considered "admirable", they're probably mediocre among the pool of Asian Ivy applicants. Do you think I should apply to this school, or do I have a better chance applying to technical schools that I know I face little competition among my school. </p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

<p>TL;DR: This kid in my (small and mediocre) school who's African American got into a school I want to apply to, and I'm Asian, so I don't know if I have any chance. Should I apply to this school? </p>

<p>NOTE: I can no longer just simply apply to an unlimited amount of schools. It's a bit complicated. It's either this HYP school or some other technical school. Thanks again!</p>

2

<p>Kinda confused why you can’t apply to all the schools you want but the bottom line is that there isn’t a quota (except for maybe at elite private feeders) so don’t worry about where you classmates apply. If you are qualified, you will get in regardless of whether or not your classmate applies. </p>

3

<p>If he got into 1, there are two more schools in that grouping.</p>

4

<p>Tsk tsk. A school that only gets kids into Cornell and Brown must be mediocre indeed. Look. Given the vanishingly small admission rates, at all Ivies, chances are neither of you will get in. You are not competing so much with each other as with the other thousands of kids from your city, your state, other states and other countries. If Harvard wants two kids from the same school, it will admit them. My advice is to quit living your life based on your perceived “competition.”. Apply where you want and to a reasonable mix of reaches, matches and safeties.</p>