Unlikely, given the volumes of applications that they're now dealing with. It's simply much harder to get into two elite universities these days. At single-di

Unlikely, given the volumes of applications that they're now dealing with. It's simply much harder to get into two elite universities these days. At single-digit admit rates, we're well past the point of selecting for qualified students. Which means that a lot of students are selected based on essentially random factors. And when something is random, humans like to see patterns where none exist. You may be thinking of the fact that the elite colleges coordinate financial aid decisions for students who have already been admitted to multiple schools. Suppose Stanford costs $60k and offers a $40k aid package, while MIT costs $58k and offers a $45k aid package. In that case, both schools might agree to offer a $42k package, so that the $7k difference in out-of-pocket costs gets narrowed to $2k. Coordination of financial aid makes coordination of admissions unnecessary, as it prevents schools from "stealing" students from each other by offering higher aid packages.