<p>^ No one knows, and, quite frankly, it doesn’t matter. If you’re a qualified applicant, no Ivy will go “Oh! This kid’s from Colorado - we’re definitely not accepting him!” or the opposite.</p>
<p>It surprises me none of the admitted students come from the Netherlands</p>
<p>Yalle accepted only 5 students from my country…</p>
<p>What country is that?</p>
<p>1 from my country. Well, better than nothing I suppose. :</p>
<p>Just saw ‘That’s Why I Chose Yale’ video.</p>
<p>And now, Yale’s my first choice! XD
GO BULLDOGS!</p>
<p>Will be applying SCEA this fall!</p>
<p>Do you know if HYPS only admits a certain number of students from a certain school? Ie, competition matters among students who are applying from the same school? Even if, respectively, they are better than other applicants?</p>
<p>^ In some ways, you are indeed competing against other people from your school. However, there are no official quotas.</p>
<p>I mean, I get the whole not-wanting-to-take-50-students-from-one-place thing…but if those 50 students are more qualified, why shouldn’t they get in over less-qualified candidates? Or does the fact that they’re all from the same school outweigh?</p>
<p>Well, all 50 of those students can’t have great class ranks, which is something that Yale considers. If it is a top high school, however, Yale may take 15-20.</p>
<p>Why is class rank necessarily important. For example, if Student A is valedictorian at a subpar school, does that make him/her more qualified than Student B who may be 25th at a terrific, difficult high school? </p>
<p>Also, my school doesn’t do class ranks. We don’t even find out who our equivalents of val and sal (which are based solely on three-year GPAs) are until the night before graduation.</p>
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<p>Grading systems and standards vary significantly from high school to high school. Class ranks provide context. </p>
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<p>Class rank itself is viewed within the context of other high schools. Admissions officers generally know which high schools are more competitive, and a top rank will be less important at those schools. If the top-five-ranked students from a high school all have less than 2100 on the SAT, it is clear that the school is not competitive; a high rank will thus mean very little. If, however, quite a few students from a school have 2300+ on the SAT and are not among the top several in the class, admissions officers will realize that the school is highly competitive (if they did not already know that).</p>
<p>Okay, what if the top ranked students don’t have very high SAT scores whereas some of the bottom-feeders of the top 20 percent of the class (myself included) have very high SAT scores? </p>
<p>What kind of context does that show? </p>
<p>(I realized, after writing this, that I sound kind of mean. I’m not trying to be)</p>
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<p>So there’s a negative correlation between GPA and SAT scores in the top 20% of your class?</p>
<p>It’s probably purely coincidental. But, a lot of the top ranking students don’t have <em>comparatively</em> high SAT scores (2160 at the highest, a few 1900s, a couple of 2000s).</p>
<p>Well if the top ranking students and higher SAT scoring students take mostly similar classes, one could probably assume that the low ranking/high SAT students are lazy in school.</p>
<p>I mean, I know that the reason my grades aren’t as awesome is because I take more classes/harder classes. I’ve doubled up on subjects in years where some kids just take 6 classes. Next year, I’m taking 9 classes and most people will be taking 5-6. And I travel a lot for an EC so I always have to make up work. Which means that I’m at the bottom of the top 20.</p>
<p>Top 20% or Top 20 students?</p>
<p>nolagirl, if your rank is suffering because you take harder classes, does this mean your school does not weight grades? If so, you can probably trust the admissions readers to understand this when comparing you to others in your school. They might also give you some consideration for quantity of courses. However the impact your EC’s have on your rank you’ll just have to live with. You can attempt to explain its depressive effect on your rank, if you wish, where the application asks for “other information”.</p>