This dissertation seeks to understand the ways in which candidates’ circumstances affect the outcomes of decisions about who to reward and give opportunity to. Across three chapters, it examines the ways that circumstances affect what people think is fair and the attributions they draw about candidates. Chapter 1 discovers one determinant of whether people favor advantaged or disadvantaged candidates in their decisions – whether they are choosing between policies or between specific individuals. In this work, which focuses on college admissions and workplace hiring, I find that decision-makers are more likely to favor disadvantaged applicants over advantaged applicants with objectively higher achievements when choosing between selection policies than choosing between individual applicants. I find that this gap is driven in part by shifting standards of fairness across the two types of decisions. When choosing between individuals, compared to choosing between policies, decision-makers are more likely to prioritize what is fair to individuals (microjustice) over what is fair in the aggregate (macrojustice). Chapter 2 examines how people evaluate a college applicant before versus after learning about their socioeconomic circumstances. This work sheds light on people’s beliefs about candidates’ socioeconomic circumstances and how people interpret candidates’ merit in light of their advantages and disadvantages. I find that people adjust their decisions and impressions asymmetrically – they positively adjust their decision to admit a disadvantaged applicant more than they negatively adjust their decision to admit an advantaged applicant. This difference appears to stem from inferences about the applicants’ effort, which are influenced by the mental models they hold about how socioeconomic (dis)advantage affects applicants. Chapter 3 examines how people make decisions in situations in which candidates’ circumstances gave them the opportunity to develop merit. It begins to shed light on how people reward candidates whose achievements stem from luck made possible by merit, in comparison to candidates whose achievements reflect just luck and just ability.