<p>The reason ranking is important is because adcoms want to read a student in context with the student peers (same high school, region). A top 5% student from a less rigorous school may not be as prepared as a student from a top high school, but it would not be the student’s fault. It is why sometimes a student with below 2000 SAT scores from inner city maybe admitted and a student from a more affluent area may need 2200+ test scores (it is especially the case for AP scores). A student from inner city will not be compared with students from Exeter, and that’s why a student’s school ranking is very important. It is not to determine how prepare a student is, but to see how he/she has done relative to others under a particular circumstance.</p>
<p>Adcoms may prefer (know) certain high schools because or their rigor and number of students matriculate there every year, but for diversity they like to admit students from different regions and social economic background. My younger kid went to two different private schools, a top US private and an international school. The top private could get 2-5 admitted to many top 10 schools each other, whereas the international school consistently get 1-2 admitted to top 10s, and those 1-2 are usually Val and Sal of the school.</p>
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Where is your source for this? I am curious because most of us do not know why someone is admitted or rejected.</p>