My best friend and I have extremely similar college lists (stanford, harvard, duke, WashU, Cornell, etc), but most specifically Stanford Early Action and Penn M&T (idk if everyone knows what this is but its an extremely selective (only 50-55 students per year) dual degree program in business (wharton <3) and engineering) Regular Decision, and rumor has it that if two people from the same school apply to the same university, its harder to get in.
He has a 2370, I have a 2290. He has a 4.00 I have a 3.91. We both took similar courses (the hardest in the school). I got 800,790,780 on Math2 Chem and Spanish. He got 800,780,790 on Math2 Chem and US History. He has slightly higher AP scores. We both have lots of leadership roles in clubs and honors societies (I’m president of science and vice president of math honors societies, in addition to lots of others, and he’s president of math and vice president of science). I have slightly better out-of-school extracurriculars (I created this incredible service project and have an internship (this is really good for when I apply to M&T)). I definitely have more community service hours (idk how many more but definitely more).
All in all, he’s slightly better academically and I’m slightly better extracurricularly. Ultimately, the question stands; is it more competitive if two people from the same school apply to the same university?
Stop talking about this with your best friend. Make an agreement to meet in May to exchange information about where you each are going. You are different people. Stop comparing.
What are you saying @lostaccount he’s my closest friend and we both kinda wanna go to the same schools why wouldn’t we talking about where we’re applying. I’m just curious because rumors have it that they accept certain numbers of people per region so they say that kids from the same school tend to have more competition with each other than other applicants.
I think the point that @lostaccount is trying to make that it will not come down to a choice of you or your friend for admission to any school or program…you will be up against tons of other very worthy applicants. And as I’m sure you are are aware, admissions at these top schools/programs are a bit of a crapshoot so nobody here can assess who might have the edge since two admissions officers could even have different opinions. All you can do is both apply where you want and see how things shake out. Schools generally don’t have a limit of how many they will accept from one school (an exception might be a tiny program like Penn M&T but still I doubt that would be a hard and fast rule). Regardless of if you end up at the same school or not, you can still remain friends.
Odds are, neither of you will get in. Come on. Look around these boards – like lostaccount said, there are people out there who have done truly amazing things in every aspect of their lives. And you’re worried about comparing 0.09 difference in GPA with your friend?
@TomSrOfBoston yo im not saying that its his fault if i don’t get in or vice versa. the question is what i said earlier: is there any difference between two applicants from the same school and two from different schools? regardless of what the answer is, I’m still gonna apply to the schools I’m applying to. I’m just curious.
@bodangles@happy1 regardless of whether or not i or he gets in, were still gonna be best friends… I’m also not comparing stats I’m more just putting the stats out there to show that we are similar candidates.
Its not more competitive per se, but Penn’s local admissions counselor will probably consider your friend to be a stronger candidate overall because of his GPA, SAT scores, and higher AP scores, all of which are considered very important.
My S and his best friend from HS both loved the same college and both decided to apply early decision. I was very concerned - my gut told me they might select one of them, but not both. I assumed they would pick the friend. Both boys had very similar stats, ECs, etc. His friend was NM commended, my S was not. Friend had won more national honors, my S had more community leadership roles.
Long story short, my S was admitted ED, and his friend was deferred and ultimately not admitted. Friend ended up at another great school (which was on my S’s list if he hadn’t gotten in his first choice). They’re still close friends.
There is no cap per school. They’ll evaluate you in terms of what they’re looking for in their incoming class. You’ll get compared in the context of your school, yes, but they won’t sit down with the files from your high school and say we can only accept 4 of these, who do we accept.
My graduating class of 455 students had 46 students accepted to Cornell (highly competitive STEM magnet high school). We also had 18 accepted to Duke, 16 to MIT, 12 to Brown, 11 to Princeton, 10 to Penn, and 10 to Stanford, to name a few schools (I only know schools with 10 or more acceptances because of the school profile; I didn’t apply to any of these schools). This is a similar pattern every year.
If that doesn’t disprove the myth that top schools won’t take multiple students from the same high school, I don’t know what does.