Hello! I have a good friend who goes to my school and we both started a nonprofit together. We have relatively similar activities (probably 4/10 are the same) and are both in the IB program with good grades but different classes. We approached out essays in different ways and want to apply to different programs (earth systems and IR). However, we both want to REA to Stanford.
If both of us REA, does that reduce our chances? Would it be better to go early to different schools? Thanks!
Apply…the Stanford will be viewing your applications separately, not together.
No. Clicking submit reduces your chances.
Stanford, and its peers, do not have s min/max/quota per HS. They may accept one or both or - most likely - neither.
My son and his friends made sure thry don’t apply early to the same schools, mostly to avoid second guesses and what-ifs once the results are out. But if Stanford is clear first choice for both of you, I guess nothing can be done about it.
Realistically, unless both of you have excellent academics, as well as a hook or pristine EC’s, you both will be rejected anyway so it shouldn’t be an issue.
Or they both could be accepted. I say…apply and see…and don’t worry about what others are doing.
My kids solved this issue easily. They did not discuss where they were applying to college with anyone.
This is great advice that should be pinned somewhere!
They don’t have hard quotas of course since those are illegal, but they definitely have soft ones. For the OP, Naviance is the best bet to see how the high school does wrt Stanford. If 100 kids apply every year say and 5 get in, it’s not going to 10 anytime soon, may not go to 1, it will be around 5. That’s what the GCs tell the kids, maybe that’s why the OP has the question.
Definitely a good idea! The issue is that everyone is talking about it so it is so hard to avoid questions. Any advice on how to do this? Especially because my friend made it clear to me that Stanford is her dream school…
If only 3-4 kids from my HS apply to Stanford, do you think they could accept 2 of us if our stats/ecs/essays are good enough?
My kids just listened when others spoke…and didn’t volunteer their own info. If asked, they politely said they were looking at many options and would let everyone know their college choice on May 1.
I’m not sure about Stanford, but some colleges assign applications from the same HS to the same admission reader so s/he can compare the applicants more fairly and conscientiously, For other colleges, the comparison may be made in the committee if both of you make it that far. No college sets an admission target for any HS consciously, but all of them would limit the number of admits from a single HS, consciously or unconsciously, in their effort to shape the incoming classes.
REA to Stanford (unlike Harvard, for example) seems to offer little advantage. Moreover, Stanford also doesn’t seem to want to reread an application (unless you’re a legacy) a second time (even in the RD round). That appears to be the reason they reject, rather than defer, most REA applicants. Unless you’re a clear admit (with a significant hook, for example), you may want to reconsider whether you should REA to Stanford.
They could of course. It would depend on how your high school has done wrt Stanford admissions in the past. Your GC should know, if you have Naviance, that should give a 5-year look I think. If they’ve admitted only one say, then, unless you have a hook as others mentioned - athlete, urm, first-gen, legacy, it would be hard to go from 1 to 2. If Stanford is your first choice, apply REA and see what happens.