@Puzzled123 is correct. I was not talking about the college’s first choice of student who won intel and siemens and saved a rainforest. Or anyone who is an automatic yes. The prior poster was talking about luck, that two seemingly equivalent candidates, one got in, one did not. Sometimes the major you put down, which could be undecided makes a difference. Several months ago there was a thread about likely letters at Penn being based in part on major selected. The institution needs more of this type of major or people interested in potentially being this major based on their ECs and classes taken.
Pizzagirl, here is my “ignorant” and “new to this country” response (not actually a new immigrant (do not mean to offend immigrants, I admire you guys) and parts of my family have been here for centuries but whatever, believe what you will) , call me when the acronym is VHYPSM. In fact certain families are hesitant to buy in the district and it is known in the area among parents of high achieving high school students (most of whom were born in this country and are neither UMRs or OMRs if that matters). If there is no difference then it should take the same effort to get into Vanderbilt as Princeton, and Vanderbilt should get just as many applications and should be just as selective. Bottom line, excellent school, you were the one who said Vanderbilt does not offer as many opportunities, I never said that, I just said it was nice and the best he got into, and it was not his first choice. Maybe he wanted to go to Princeton so he could study a fusion reactor first hand. Maybe there was a professor at Princeton whose work he admired. Maybe he wanted to go to Williams because he could relate to the students on his visit and did not get in.
You completely missed my point which is that certain school districts for some reason do not place as many students in top 10 schools as others. This is something that is completely beyond the individual’s control. For any one person or any one year, having the top student go to Vanderbilt while his neigbors on the other sides of the district line goes to HYPSM is completely random, it may be the application. Having it happen every year for 5 years in a row, is an issue for the school district. The other effect is that in the neighboring school districts, #1 goes to Harvard, #2 goes to Columbia, #s 3 Duke 4,5 go to WashU and #7 and 8 go to Vanderbilt and Dartmouth and others that I cannot recall but are all top 20 schools (and I realize it could be #3 or 4 who gets in to Harvard over #1, that is NOT my point). In the problem school district, #1 is going to Vanderbilt, #2 is going to Vassar, #3 and 4 are going to Northeastern and BU, #10 is going to Union College and most other people are going to SUNYs or equivalents. Same socio economics, all un hooked, same ethnic groups. School is the same size and kids go to the same SAT prep course. All living with 2 miles of each other. No one can figure out why. For the record I do not live in any of the districts so my bourgeoisie notions are not at issue.