<p>Actually, the answer is no, for the most part, global Dolphin. Stanford typically wins cross-admit battles with Princeton by a good margin, and either edges out or ties Yale for cross-admits. Harvard edges out Stanford a bit on cross-admits most years, though the spread is narrowing. So, expectation of attendance doesn’t explain cases where a student is admitted to one or more of those schools but not Stanford. Each college has its own holisltic algorithm and institutional needs/preferences, and there is a significant element of chance in addition.</p>
<p>This data is absurd.</p>
<p>@zenkoan—I guess this is where the aforementioned benefit of applying REA which was discussed in a similar prior thread comes in. However when you mention cross-admit battles I doubt that’s true for East Coast studentd who typically stay closer to home for college, which is why so many more NJ/NY/MA students go to any top Ivy than Stanford. I would say the effect I previously mentioned makes somewhat of a difference but obviously cannot acount for all of that.</p>
<p>I have always thought that the importance of the Writing section was heavily downplayed. Sure, a 650 or 700 on writing is a good score, but an elite university wants to know that your grammatical, and thus writing/speaking, skills are solidly perfect. Good thing I got 780 and 800W in my 2 times. And the second time, I got 80 MC subscore and 12 essay :)</p>
<p>They should be able to determine your writing skills from your essays.</p>
<p>Do they see both your MC and your essay or just the total W score?</p>
<p>This is irrelevant, but I think it’s interesting that they listed Palestine as a country while the US government hasn’t recognized Palestine. It probably was just part of the effort to brag about their international geographic diversity, but I’d like to think they did it as a conscious political statement.</p>
<p>GlobalDolphin, I’m sure it’s true that a good number of kids on both coasts tend to stay closer to home than kids living elsewhere. It’s likely to be especially true that those in need of financial aid will choose their own coast rather than the opposite one, since it gets pretty expensive flying across the country several times per year. Cheers and good luck to you.</p>
<p>Thanks—though even parents for whom money is not a major issue prefer to ahve their kids closer to home, FOR.</p>
<p>Though there are also many parents who encourage their kids to experience a different region of the country, if it’s otherwise feasible.</p>
<p>Possibly, though this is less common than parents wanting their kids to stay near home.</p>