<p>I'm from a decent public school in suburban Mass and I, like a few of my friends, am looking at applying to some top tier schools. The ones I have in mind right now are John Hopkins and Rice. Do schools like this, especially schools outside your home state, look at who else is applying from your school? Do they not want too many from the same place? Will it hurt my chances if I apply to the same school as my valedictorian?</p>
<p>From what I know, they do look at schools. If they are interested in diversity then I do think they’ll take care not all the students form one area are from the same school. That being said, my school sent three kids to Darthmouth and some five to Duke last year. If you have it, then I don’t think it’ll make a big difference.</p>
<p>My kids went to a high school with fewer than 60 kids per grade. One year they sent 2 to Dartmouth, another year two to USC’s School of Cinematic Arts (very tough admissions). And I am sure there are multiple acceptances in the same class at some highly selective schools where the kids don’t choose to go to them, so I am not aware. </p>
<p>My D is at Harvey Mudd (incoming class is less than 200 students), and her two best friends there both attended the same high school in Portland.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about it. Just put in the best application you can.</p>
<p>From my naviance data, 32 people applied to Cornell last year (super competitive class). 8 got accepted (fewer actually attended, of course). But gives you a vague idea that yes, they can take relatively large numbers of people from the same school/class. Our class size was ~485 last year.</p>