“They don’t need to take a student from SD simply to say that they did.”
Well they definitely say in their press releases and student profiles how many states and countries. If you’re from South Dakota, you’re competing with other students from South Dakota. Once a school hits 50 states, well it’s going to be tough to not keep it as 50, maybe once in a while, 47 or 48. The number of countries, again, these universities are not going to show they’re less popular by decreasing the number of countries by a lot. The very first line in Stanford’s profile is number of states and countries, in 2017 they had 48 states, now they’re at 50. They did reduce the number of countries from 68 to 63, I give them credit for that.
“Every kid submits a full application. It either does the trick or not”
what tricks are these - having a lot of money or power, being an urm, first gen, an athlete, legacy, having the last name Obama or Kushner (just to represent both sides)? I do think though that once these slots are taken up, they get into a substantive discussion on applicants and do a pretty good job with getting the best, but they’re humans and will make mistakes.