Wouldn’t you be competing in the top 3-5% of the people with the same interests instead of the applicant pool in general? e.g. if you were a soccer player you’d be competing in the top 3-5% of soccer applicants, not general applicants since they would want to fill their soccer teams? idk either I’m also an applicant and at least this is what I thought, may be wrong though. In my niche I am probably #1 or #2 in the nation in my grade, but Latin/Classics and Certamen is a pretty small niche and I wouldn’t be reapplying if I did not have classics this year which I did not have last year (awards come out after March 10 and in the summer in Classics world)