Looking at those stats, it’s less clear than I thought it was based on what you said previously as to whether your HS does have a relationship with Stanford.
4.0 unweighted GPA in hardest courses, top-end test scores, state or national level achievement or recognition in an EC?
@TheSATTeacher I am as unsure as you are on whether or not my school has a relationship with Stanford. I didn’t realize that “relationships” with universities was a thing, actually. You and @gibby have been very helpful in explaining that to me.
@ucbalumnus Yes to all three.
Here’s my take: In each of the last two years, Stanford accepted 10% of the students who applied from your high school. IMHO, that’s about as good as it gets.
By way of comparison: At Stuyvesant – a known feeder school to the ivies – about 200 top students each year (out of a graduating class of about 900) apply to Stanford and HYPM. In 2017, 5 students from Stuyvesant were admitted to Stanford (2.5% admit rate), 10 students were admitted to Harvard (5% admit rate), 10 students were admitted to Yale (5% admit rate), 11 students were admitted to MIT (5.5% admit rate), and 13 students were admitted to Princeton (6% admit rate).
As others have said, have a conversation with your guidance counselor, as they DO have a relationship with Stanford and have years of experience advocating for students from your high school. Ask them where they think you have the best chance of acceptance when applying SCEA . . . and then follow their advice!
Relationships are a very real thing, especially at certain private schools with strong college counseling departments. Some high schools are just very competitive, though, so a lot of students get accepted to good schools. I don’t know what the case is for your school.
As far as relationships go, there are high schools where guidance counselors will know ahead of time whether a student has gotten into a given school. Often, guidance counselors at schools will be in direct communication with admissions officers at certain colleges. They will often vouch for a given student.
They will also often communicate how interested a student is in a given school to admissions officers at that school. They will help students get accepted to certain schools and rejected from others. The idea here is that the hs can basically force a student to attend a given school. Consequently, the relationships are beneficial to colleges because relationships boost a school’s yield and limit uncertainty.
A lot more can be said on this, but relationships are very real. High schools will often give a list of how many students are going to various selective colleges. If you look at these lists, you will notice some funny trends. For example, 15 students attending Princeton, yet only 2 attending Harvard. These often aren’t even geography related. Often, different high schools within a town will have relationships with different schools. I imagine someone could do a statistical analysis of these things, but what I have found is that admissions to a given highly selective college from the best high schools is almost always lopsided in favor of certain schools. In other words, it does not seem like the school that has 15 students attending Princeton and only 2 attending Harvard is simply a product of sheer randomness. I do not think the distribution is anything like what we would expect from that at all.
Whether your school has a relationship with Stanford…it is hard to say. If I were you, I would look at Naviance, disregard all the profiles from the students who didn’t have the right scores or grades. Look at the ones who had a realistic chance of admission. See how they did. Check what rate they were accepted at.
Apply to Harvard. If you only want to go to Stanford because you think you will have a better chance of acceptance, you will always be wondering if you would have gotten into your actual first choice, Harvard, whether Stanford accepts or rejects you.
Are some of you suggesting OP game numbers, before he understands what each looks for and can properly self assess if he even meets what S or H looks for? He says his stats and ECs are competitive, but are they? All I see is interest in some outside stem programs and some non profit.
You don’t get in because, historically, others from your hs did. You don’t know why they did. At any time, adcoms can decide they like another hs better or others in your area now offer fabulous candidates.
No tip for simply applying some form of Early.
He can spend the time learning what matters, etc, maybe fine tuning or filling gaps…and decide in Sept.
Adding, it’s not about national awards and recognition in ECs. It’s the whole he presents. Those don’t magically make one some sort of lock. Learn more, OP.
OP, applying early at HYPSM gives no advantage to an unhooked applicant but it increases your odds significantly at rest of top 20 list.
I’d add: you’re from California - how many, if any, of those five kids admitted to Stanford in the past couple of years from your high school were legacies? The more there were, the less clear it is, because those kids had a leg up.
There are no increased odds if you don’t match well. They don’t say, “We’ll take 100 extra kids, any kids, just because they applied early.”
@lookingforward thank you for your insight. I’ve been on campus tours to both schools and I’ve done research on what each college’s culture is like and what each looks for. I merely added that my stats were competitive to dissuade any concern that I’m just blindly applying to each school. The extracurriculars you’ve gleaned from my earlier threads/replies are just the surface of what my application looks like, and for the sake of anonymity I’m not going to say more about my profile.
I believe there’s been a lot of discussion about ‘college relationships’ in this thread so far, so I’m glad to hear your opinion on that.
“Learn more, OP.” --yes, I’m trying! Hence my discussions on this site. Thanks.
Also, @lookingforward, out of curiosity, what made you think I was male?
For an unhooked student, both schools are equally hard to get in, so you should apply early to your favorite school, as chances are ‘slightly’ higher in SCEA. For strong unhooked applicants, it is not unlikely to get into both H and S.
Of course talk to your counselor to understand if any special relationship to ur school or more legacy/employee kids applying to S.
I sometimes revert to he as a generic. Or she. Or both.
Glad you’re searching for good info, not sure CC is always as effective as what the colleges actually say and show. (Not just on tours.) The EC issue is because more matters that what many kids think. Eg, when anyone mentions a nonprofit, in short, it’s generally not a tip. The rest can be the more decisive factors. When it comes to S or other tippy tops, the right balance matters. And relevance. And the competition is fierce. What stands out to you or in your hs, may not be your prime points. May even be things many kids in the applicant pool do.
But see how this thread is encouraging a choice now of where to apply Early, when you have months and we have little info to base advice on? The tippy tops are not so interchangeable.
Your decisisons.
Best to you.
In my kid’s CA high school of around 530 kids in his class, around 8 or 9 kids have ever been accepted to each of Harvard and Stanford. All who were accepted to Stanford went to Stanford, and almost all who were accepted to Harvard went to Harvard. Usually, the accepted ones were not the kids who had highest test scores and GPAs.
As to OP’s question, don’t over-complicate things; just apply to Harvard ED because that is your number 1 choice.
I know one kid who got into Harvard, Stanford, Princeton etc., and this kid spent too much time and effort choosing the school. First chose Princeton, then had second thought and wanted to attend Harvard, but ultimately chose Stanford, feeling not so hot about giving up Harvard experience. It was a mess. Personally, I don’t think it makes a darn difference which college you attend out of the three, so if I were admitted to the above 3 colleges, I would choose a college based on CONVENIENCE such as weather and proximity to my home.
You have to know who were the kids that were accepted to Stanford.
At our NorCal (Silicon Valley) public HS, which regularly sends 7-12 kids (last 4 years) to Stanford each year, almost every single admit either: 1) had a parent or parents who were employees of Stanford (they’re a HUGE local employer), 2) was a recruited athlete or 3) a high achieving URM.
For the Class of 2022, all 7 that enrolled at Stanford fit into one of those three categories.
If you’re not in one of those categories, then the odds are EXTREMELY slim, no matter the stats in REA.
Noting that OP has been gone since May. No idea what choices were made.