Do schools compare applicants from the same undergradaute school?

[qocha_geog]

 I've already accepted an offer so this is just out of general curiosity, but I'm curious to what degree admissions committees compare applicants coming from the same school. For instance I know one school where both myself and another person (a friend) from my current undergrad program applied (we both ended up being accepted). Now I'm a good student, but the other person is definitely on paper more impressive (much higher GPA, more advanced math and physics courses, more research experience, etc.) . And it would be pretty easy to compare us as I'd say we took 75% of our major courses together, 2/3 of our letters were written by the same profs, and we have somewhat similar research interests. I know the internal machinations of adcoms are largely a mystery but I'll admit I had a couple tense moments when I was wondering if being compared would hurt me. And similarly do departments, especially smaller ones, ever frown upon accepting multiple students from the same undergrad school

[TakeruK]

Although every place will have its own process, here are some generalities:

1. There is no good reason to frown upon accepting multiple students from the same undergraduate school. It's also not a fair comparison. 

2. Evaluation committees (of all types) will often have to choose between two models: comparative or absolute scales. If they are going to be comparing candidates against each other, then there's no reason to extra-compare two people from the same school. They would compare you two against each other but also against every other candidate they are considering.

 

[fuzzylogician]

3 hours ago, qocha_geog said:

I know the internal machinations of adcoms are largely a mystery but I'll admit I had a couple tense moments when I was wondering if being compared would hurt me. And similarly do departments, especially smaller ones, ever frown upon accepting multiple students from the same undergrad school

We can't really know and this varies, but: 

1. Smaller departments might be more concerned with diversity, in which case this might be an issue. On the other hand, they might have a strategy of developing one (or a few) areas of strength, in which case they might recruit students with those particular specialties, who may very well come from a particular subset of schools.

2. Although adcoms may directly compare two applicants, especially when it's suggestive, I think a more common thing that happens is that a student is compared more generally against previous applicants and students who have similar backgrounds. E.g. "School XYZ has consistently produced students who have done well in our program. (Or: Letter Writer XYZ has consistently written letters for students who have done well in our program. Or: students with XYZ prior experience/courses/whatever have consistently done well in our program.) Given this, Student ABC might be a good candidate for our program."