<p>I have to say-- about Andover and other prep schools-- I'm a bit disappointed. My friend applied as a freshman, and he had D's in almost all of his classes. But he played hockey! His dad pulled a few strings and they let him in. I had much better grades, EC's, etc. than he did and I got waitlisted at St. Paul's in New Hampshire (only prep I applied to; I'm a legacy), where he also got accepted. In the end it all works out, though, as I'm going to Washington & Lee University (#13 on US news) and he is going to Colby College (#19 on US news and my dad's alma mater BTW)... both with no financial aid or merit money :-(.</p>
<p>As for my public HS in Maine, we have two kids going to Ivies... both going to Dartmouth. One girl got rejected ED from Columbia, and I don't know where she got in RD but she applied to EVERY Ivy and then some prestigious women's schools. We have 3 Tufts, Georgetown, Williams, Carleton, Claremont McKenna, Middlebury, Amherst, among others, but a lot of those schools are from single applicants who got into a few of them. My good friend who is very gifted and a great person got rejected at Middlebury and Tufts, WL at Carleton, Georgetown, and accepted at Bates. He had a good hook of wanting to go into foreign service and he is fluent in Spanish, and near fluent in Russian. Very good with languages. I think the thing is that he applied to many schools where he had some competition within our HS. I, on the other hand, am the only person EVER to go to W&L from my HS, so I am very geographically desirable. </p>
<p>Basically, college admissions seem totally random to me. I have seen kids get into schools I never thought they would get into, and other kids get rejected from schools that would be lucky to have them.</p>