<p>@coase:</p>
<p>The fact that the soccer player already know where he/she is going to kick, does not change your optimal strategy because there are many soccer players kicking the ball.</p>
<p>So even if you cannot know which specific soccer player will keet to the left or the right (and they may already decided). Your best strategy is to send many applications (= try to defend many penalty kicks). The more penaly kicks you try to defend, the higher is the chance that you will catch at least one ball (= get one acceptance).</p>
<p>In fact, the fact that all kickers are not perfectly equal (schools are not perfectly equal) makes it even more likely that one of them will accept you (provided you are a competitive student).</p>
<p>By competitive I do not mean “shoe in”. I mean, have the stats to be among the average admitted student.</p>