<p>My high school never sends many graduates to selective schools. </p>
<p>I'll use Boston College as an example. My school is pretty close to BC and there are many applicants to it each year. BC has never accepted more than one student from my school in the past decade. Many other applicants from my school are also applying to BC, some of whom are definitely more qualified than I am. So this evidence is making me really nervous about my chances. 3 of us applied early, and none of us were accepted (2 were deferred, 1 was rejected). I think the same situation usually happens with Tufts.</p>
<p>Even though many colleges claim to not compare applicants from the same high school, I find it hard to believe that this is true. </p>
<p>I find it contradictory how some admissions people claim that 1) they view applicants in their school's "context" but 2) don't compare applicants to each other. Why else would they care about rank?</p>
<p>That said, colleges might look at the general quality/resources of your school as some kind of standard, and not other applicants. This means that the quality of applicants naturally vary from year to year. My school's acceptance rate to Princeton has declined 14 percentage points in the past three years. I'm hoping it rebounds up this year.</p>
<p>Of the around six hundred seniors at my school, perhaps ten will go to a reputable college. It's not the challenge we face from our colleagues, but the barrier we must overcome from the gross inferiority of our high school.</p>
<p>Although the GCs at our school insist that we are not in competition with each other, I find that hard to believe. If you are applying to a college that has a regional officer reading all the apps from your school, how is that officer going to avoid comparing students? I think that it is just human nature. Furthermore, if two top students have similar interests, it makes sense that they may be applying to a similar set of schools. For example, two students both interested in languages might both be applying to Georgetown. Now they could both get accepted, but it is also likely that the student with the slightly higher stats or slightly better recs will get in. I think the GCs say this in order to tone down the highly stressful competition that sets in senior year. Obviously, this is more true for schools that send lots of kids to top schools each year as opposed to schools that send only one kid to an ivy each year.</p>
<p>"If you are applying to a college that has a regional officer reading all the apps from your school, how is that officer going to avoid comparing students?"</p>
<p>Here's how. Let's say your HS has a top athlete, a "standard" well rounded top student, and a top musician (violin) applying to an ultra selective school.</p>
<p>The regional officer has very few athletes this year and yours is very superior: she gets IN. There are several top violinists from your region, the music school makes a recomendation and your violinist gets rejected because of the better musicians and he isn't as strong as other "standard" applicants. The "standard" student is great relative to the other "standard" apps this year. Based on intuition and a strong essay, the officer advances this student to the next round. In committee, his strengths are noted and gets advanced again but only gets a WL due to the many great apps. Once May rolls around, a few slots open up and the regional officer goes to bat for this "standard" student and he gets a later offer.</p>
<p>Real scenarios: Yes you're in competition but you really don't know how much you are DIRECTLY in competition w/your HS classmates. Sometimes a lot, sometimes not at all.</p>
<p>But it is very unpredictable. The HS that I recruit (I recruit for one of the HYP colleges) at had FOUR admits last year -- a HUGE statistical anomaly (usually only 0-2 in previous years). I can only assume that there just happened to be four excellent kids last year and not others. It's a cliche but "crapshoot" comes to mind.</p>
<p>Nativelady: I see what you're saying, as my high school is pretty bad as well, but even so, usually a couple kids can get into top schools. Last year, Tufts accepted a legacy student who was vastly inferior to another student with a better rank, SATs, ECs, who also applied early decision. This student was rejected. Sometimes I really think that certain schools--namely, the selective ones in the area--just do not want to accept more than one kid from my school per year.</p>
<p>It sucks but it's true that a student who is extremely well-qualified but who goes to a less well-known high school will often get rejected in favor of an equally or less qualified student from a well-known high school.</p>
<p>My friend and I are both the captains of the dance team. Very similar EC's (private dance studio, high school team same number of years, volunteering etc.) Both taking 3 of the same classes this year. Both applying to Nursing major. Her stats are better than mine (GPA and SATs) but so far we've both been accepted to at least one of the schools we applied to. Not that it's the same, because the college itself isn't that difficult to get into, but the nursing program is. They take less than 100 students for the program. </p>
<p>^Only if you're actually qualified for that Ivy.</p>
<p>My school is one of those super-competitive schools that sends ~30% each year to Ivies. 40 kids in the senior class this year are applying to Yale. Maybe 10 will get in. And that seems like a low percentage, but it's still a lot higher than Yale's overall admit rate, and that's because most of them are qualified in terms of numbers.</p>
<p>"It sucks but it's true that a student who is extremely well-qualified but who goes to a less well-known high school will often get rejected in favor of an equally or less qualified student from a well-known high school." </p>
<p>There's no way to quantify this given the subjective nature of selective school admissions. A disadvantage that I can think of for students in well-known high schools is that the colleges will know EXACTLY what the rigorous curriculum and meaningful ECs will be. No fudging for that kid. He/She may come under tighter scrutiny whereas the "newcomer" may be given more leeway and someone may take a chance for that diamond in the rough.</p>
<p>Thats the good thing about going to rural public school. Most kids have glazed eyes when I tell them where I'm applying. I have no competition since my friends and I aren't applying to the same schools either.</p>
<p>Most reps that I spoke to said they dont judge students from the same school, and they DO NOT have a quota of how many students to take from one school. I know schools that have taken 40+ kids last year in a grade of only 300.</p>
<p>While I don't think there are quotas, it stands to reason that if by definition you are in competition with all other applicants applying to a particular school, then you are also in competition with the students from your own school who are applying to that school. Obviously, the competition may vary according to the attributes you and the other students from your school may possess, but for the essentially "unhooked" candidate, some comparision must take place. If you have two well-rounded students from the same school applying, and neither one has any particularly distinguishing characteristics, then it is going to come down to things like SAT scores, letters of rec, etc. I agree that a recruitable athlete may get into a school regardless of how many people are applying, but what about the kids who are borderline. I think that is the reason many feel admission at the top schools is a crapshoot. One student from a school will gain admission and another very similar student will not. Then one wonders if the second student would have gotten in if the first did not apply.</p>
<p>All I know is that there are two girls in my high school who were best friends, both of them want to desperately get into this one school, and they are sneaking and stabbing each other's backs by lying to each other about applying to it, and now that one of them got accepted and the other is still waiting, there is a lot of drama.</p>
<p>I mean, when it comes down to taking advantage of your surroundings, I would think they would be competition. If one person truly took advantage and showed passion by using the resources around them, and the other one looks like they did 50% of what the other person did...</p>
<p>That's why I'm glad one of my top competitors got into Brown ED and the other was rejected from Stanford (our main similar school)... I don't have to worry about them making me look bad, heh.</p>
<p>My schools sends, like, two people to Ivy League schools every year, out of about six hundred. I've been assuming this would completely screw me over, since the adcom would assume I've been living among dunces. But maybe lack of competition is actually a good thing?</p>
<p>That's funny, lunar. My school so far has only one student accepted to an Ivy--me. But two of my friends are going to Stanford and JHU. We've got plenty of apps out there still for Yale and whatnot. We get into good colleges, apparently, just not the same one.</p>
<p>My school profile, which lists schools that senior have gotten into, lists one ivy. MIT. Which the valedictorian 4 years ago went to. I can't decide if it's to my advantage, or my disadvantage that nobody from my schools goes / applies to ivies.</p>