<p>Here’s another case in point: Both my kids attended Stuyvesant High School, which admittedly is not the normal HS. Approximately one-quarter of the graduating class (about 200 students) applies to Harvard every year – and every student is a stand-out in their own right. There’s also a high likelihood that those same kids also apply to Yale, Princeton, Stanford and the like, so in-school competition for top colleges is fierce. Although Stuyvesant doesn’t rank, the HS college office assumes admissions lines up files in GPA order to determine relative ranking. That said, Harvard takes who they want to take and they don’t concern themselves with minimums. I imagine it’s the same with peer institutions. However, no matter how stellar everyone is, when 200 kids apply from one school, Admissions cannot take everyone, so they probably do have a maximum number they will take from one school. Some years Harvard has skipped over the Valedictorian and taken kids with lesser GPA’s – as in students ranked #6, #10, #37, #71, #103, #162 etc. Some years they will admit 8 students; other years they will admit 15 or 16. The year my daughter applied, Admissions took 28 kids and then the Regional Admissions Director retired and was replaced with someone new. The next year Harvard took 6 students. Was it because the students in that year were less impressive than the year before, or was it because the new Admissions Director wasn’t as keen on the school as the recently retired director? There are so many variables and unknowns in the applications process that you never know why a college takes who they take. But I think the word to use if “fluid” – the number of students accepted from an individual high school will most likely change from year to year depending upon the scholastic potential of students and what Admissions happens to think of your school in any given year.</p>