<p>Does an applicant have less of a chance at HYPS if he or she is qualified but there are 1 or 2 better qualified applicants from his/her school in the same applicant pool? I know MIT says they have a “student-centered” policy - meaning that the individual is not evaluated against others from the same school - but is the same true for HYPS, Caltech, and the other Ivies?</p>
<p>what’s the incentive for a college to pass over a more appealing applicant for a less appealing one, essentially settling for less ;)? certain high schools send as many as over twenty applicants to one of HYPS a year, while other high school don’t see any acceptance for a decade. I don’t think this is something to worry about.</p>
<p>Thanks. bump</p>
<p>Bump…</p>
<p>Your question is the same as “How many students will they accept from my school” question that gets posted here often. 1) there’s no reason for top schools to have quotas per high school – for there to be quotas, you’re assuming that they are setting aside slots for other high schools. For what? To curry favor? They don’t need to curry favor. If your school has three kids they want, they’ll take them and other schools get zeroes. They don’t care. Next year, your school may get zero. They want whom they want.</p>
<p>2) You’re competing against a huge pool. To say you’re directly compared to the student that happens to also apply from your HS frankly, diminishes the strength of the overall pool. You’re not competing against two people but nameless/faceless thousands. Since you can’t do anything about this, stop worrying and apply if you have enough self confidence – even with the extreme likelihood of rejection that all the applicants face… If you don’t have this confidence or ability to withstand rejection, then don’t. </p>
<p>The fact that you’re considering MIT says that you’ve got some academic potential. Congrats. I’m sure whatever college confers their degree to you in 5-6 years will be very happy.</p>
<p>If you’re trying to handicap your chances according to your HS, looks at previous year admits to the schools you’re applying to. That says volumes about how your HS is viewed. Some HS’s send more than one kid to MIT almost every year, others never have.</p>