<p>Some very talented students, who win public awards that list the colleges they are interested in (like Intel/STS), may be rejected by HYPMS for “yield” reasons…or…because they want to reserve the precious spots in their entering class for students who really want to go to their school. </p>
<p>I remember a parent saying “If Harvard rejected him, who are they looking for?” Well, the “him” in this situation was an Intel/STS finalist, national grand prize winner in a humanities contest, straight A student, great EC’s , great test scores etc – but the PR pieces put out by a number of his awards stated that he wanted to go to Stanford or Cal Tech. Two ivies rejected him. Similar student… with similar stats including a Davidson fellowship…stated he wanted to go to Harvard or Yale. He was rejected at Stanford.</p>
<p>Perhaps at some point, the OP’s daughter, who has outside scholarships based on his posts on other threads, indicated somewhere that Stanford may not be her first choice…</p>