<p>There are 6 people in total that have applied early from my school.
How much of an impact does number of applicants from a single school matter?</p>
<p>I am wondering this as well. Very few people from my school apply every year, and Stanford has not accepted an applicant from my HS in ~10 years.</p>
<p>Same boat here. Any input would be much appreciated.</p>
<p>I don’t know how the number that applies affects anything, but for the past 6 years of our naviance data, our school has 4-6 acceptances, no matter how many apply. (we have about 80-120 that apply each year). No one would be able to convince me that they don’t have a pre-defined quota or ‘guideline’ for certain schools or probably geographic areas. For example, maybe they haven’t taken any from your particular high school, but you might be grouped with other schools in a geographic pool and they might take 4-6 from that whole pool. Maybe this will be the year for your school!
For what its worth, we usually get 0-2 in the EA round and 1-2 deferrals. The only deferrals that get accepted are ones that make it to the Intel finals.</p>
<p>Jeez. You guys’ schools are nuts. I hadn’t even heard of Intel or Siemens until the beginning of my senior year when I joined these forums.</p>
<p>Admissions claims that they do not limit the number of acceptances per HS or region. Many high schools do see significant variation in acceptances from year to year. For example, TJ (a public magnet HS in VA) had 15 acceptances in 2012, then 8 in 2013.</p>
<p>For my school, I hear that they will take only one student out of all who apply. 1 got in last year. I hope it’s me this year! lol</p>
<p>If a lot of students apply from your high school, you will be compared against other applicants and your peers.</p>
<p>Unless your school is a very special case, the admissions office just wants to admit the most outstanding applicants, whatever that means. </p>
<p>Now, in the special cases, the office may have a sort of quid pro quo (likely not explicit) with the high school college counselors. Basically, “we’ll admit a bunch of your students, and we know from recent years that most of them will accept our offer, so keep sending really good students our way.” This is referred to as a “pipeline,” or a “relationship,” and not only does it happen in college admissions, but college athletic recruiting as well. </p>
<p>Have you wondered why 15 to 20 people from each reputable high school near Palo Alto get accepted to Stanford every single year? Or how 40 people from each reputable high school near Evanston get accepted to Northwestern every single year? But take an equally good high school in a suburb of New York, and maybe they’ll get two admits to Stanford and four to Northwestern one year, and zero and six, respectively, the next. These schools aren’t sending many applicants to Stanford in the first place, so there isn’t much cost in potentially alienating them. </p>
<p>Sometimes a private school in a distant zip code can meet the pipeline criteria. There always seems to be a handful of Stanford students from Harvard-Westlake (LA) every year, for instance. If Stanford had a two year stretch where no one got in from Harvard-Westlake, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect the college counselors there to funnel students more towards the Ivy League. And if Harvard-Westlake had a two year stretch where none of the admits matriculated to Stanford, then it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect the admissions officers to turn their sights on talent pools where they know their admissions offer won’t be “wasted.” If both sides don’t make an effort to keep the pipeline open, it can quickly close. </p>
<p>Granted, Harvard-Westlake and Santa Clara County produce some great students, and Stanford is a great school, so it isn’t hard to keep this relationship going. In fact, one logical reason for these relationships are that top schools don’t want those talent pools to apply elsewhere. </p>
<p>OP, since your HS doesn’t meet the pipeline criteria, I would predict anywhere from zero (the most likely outcome) to two admits. And whatever the number is will have no bearing on next year’s number.</p>
<p>
I’d expect the most influential factor is number of qualified applicants. In some years, as much as 47% of the freshman class at Stanford was from California. Other states nearby CA are also overrepresented. Stanford does not show obvious favoritism by choosing applicants from nearby states over equal applicants from distant states. Instead the totals are high because excellent students who live within driving distance are far more likely to apply than those who live thousands of miles away. I’d expect this application rate effect to be far greater among HSs in the SF bay area than the aggregate effect for the full state. As many on this site like to point out, another influential factor is rate of hooks. Children of faculty and others with special connections to the university go to high schools near Palo Alto. There is also a high rate of legacies and large donors, compared to the rate for the general population.</p>
<p>^Yes, all those explain why a higher number get in during an average year. The pipeline only shows its teeth during below-average years, when for whatever reason not as many students from a given high school apply, or there aren’t as many legacies/faculty brats, or the crop of students just isn’t that great.</p>
<p>If the number of admits during such a year plummets, I’m wrong. If it stays relatively consistent, you can attribute that to the “pipeline.” Again, pipelines are easy to close. If Stanford only admits the 5 deserving applicants from Palo Alto High School one below-average year, then next year’s students might be discouraged from applying to Stanford early, or at all. Instead, Stanford might just bite the bullet that year and take a few more (top notch) students that otherwise might not have gotten in. Keeps the good vibes flowing.</p>
<p>
In 2009, Gunn High School in Palo Alto had 25 admits. In 2010, the number of admits plummeted to 13.</p>
<p>Okay, so it seems Stanford doesn’t believe in the pipeline model. Other schools, maybe a step or two below, do. My college counselor told me as much.</p>
<p>@Senior, I think you’re reading way too much into things. Our high school counselor didn’t “funnel” us anywhere–at our school, counselors don’t even meet with families to develop a college list, they just write the rec letter and send it where the students tell them to. And my daughter wouldn’t skip applying to a school that interests her just because a few top students in the last year or two didn’t get in there. Given how low overall acceptance rates are at some of these schools, you can’t draw any conclusions from a few rejections or from results for just a few years.</p>
<p>Moreover…the reason why schools immediately surrounding and/or in Palo Alto have a higher number of students admitted historically over the years is mainly due to FACULTY connections more than anything else (it just makes logical sense that faculty children should be attending schools close to Palo Alto…if not Gunn or Paly then Menlo or Harker)…</p>
<p>…but as you get further away from Palo Alto…there are less faculty connections to Stanford…as attested by the fact that even Lowell in San Francisco (the preeminent powerhouse magnet school similar to Bronx School or Stuyvesant) had ZERO acceptance out of 70 applicants in 2012 and had only TWO acceptances out of 70 plus applicants in 2013…</p>
<p>…Stanford is no different than Harvard in its practices…accepting a higher proportion of FACULTY students attending nearby high schools in and around Cambridge (like Cambridge Rindge and Latin School or Boston Latin…along with many private prep schools close by)…</p>
<p>…what is interesting is that the sheer number of applicants from one school does not necessarily mean MORE students will be accepted to Stanford (as the above example illustrates)…on the contrary, I have consistently seen a higher percentage of acceptances coming from certain wealthy suburban highly academic-ranking public high schools (small student populations overall) in the bay-area and beyond…</p>
<p>…so, don’t read too much into HOW many apply from your school…it may or may not help you depending on the CLIENTELE that attends that school…</p>
<p>I’d think that the kind of school you come from matters a lot.</p>
<p>I live near Harvard-Westlake and North Hollywood High School, both of which are incredibly prestigious compared to all other schools in the area (NHHS has a gifted program). A big group of students get into top-tier schools each year from both.</p>
<p>… as opposed to my humble public high school where maybe one to three students, max, get accepted into top universities each year :)</p>
<p>Stormcloud, I feel you. I attend a prestigeless public high school within easy driving distance of some of the finest prep schools and competitive publics in the nation. Although I have been serious about academics from an early age, my parents decided that they wanted me to experience public education in all its victories and shortcomings. I really cannot thank them enough.</p>
<p>@orbdas: truth</p>
<p>My parents were going to enroll me in Harvard Westlake, but I declined… mainly out of spite because some kid from HW had beaten me in a math contest in like 7th grade XD Last year, 4 years later, I won at a local math contest over them >:D</p>
<p>…anyway, back to the topic: I think the area you live in and the school you attend definitely affect how admissions offices look at your application.</p>
<p>I’m relatively close to Harvard-Westlake too, but forget them, public school all the way. And yeah I’d totally agree, location does matter to at least a small extent.</p>
<p>
you don’t say?</p>