<p>One of my teacher recommenders is a guy who did his Post Doc at Harvard. He told me that Harvard discriminates applicants not only on race but also on geographic relation. </p>
<p>Apparently Harvard adcoms try to make the Harvard undergrad population mimic the relative frequencies of Americans in their respective geographic locations. Let's say America is 30% midwestern...Harvard tries to get their population to be 30% midwestern.</p>
<p>Harvard has the most problems w/Midwesterners though. (i don't know why). they just don't get as many applications from the Midwest as they do from the West and East. So, apparently, they discriminate against Western and Eastern Americans in favor of Midwesterners.</p>
<p>It’s no secret, and it’s not affirmative action. Harvard also tries to get a mix of ethnicities, religions, political viewpoints, socioeconomic backgrounds, and countries represented in its class.</p>
<p>This is news on the order of the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. Except Harvard doesn’t try to match U.S. population distribution closely at all. It does, however, try to get a few people from everywhere and a decent number from everywhere significant. That’s part of being a truly national university. Massachusetts (and all of New England) is plenty over-represented, notwithstanding. New York, too.</p>
<p>Not only does Harvard do that – EVERY university that sees itself as a national institution does it to some extent. Even Stanford, although traditionally Stanford has said that California itself is so diverse that it really doesn’t need geographical diversity to have a diverse student body. Nevertheless, Stanford still takes pains to accept applicants from all over. And I think it gets a higher proportion of West Coast applicants than it accepts.</p>
<p>They have 10x as many apps as they can accept. They could fill their class with a very talented and succesful class using only the apps that come in on Mondays.</p>
<p>There’s no shortage of competitive people applying to Harvard from the great lake states (Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota) Saying there is affirmative action for the midwest is a little too general. There would be a boost for states like Iowa, the Dakotas, some of the Southern states.</p>
<p>The way I see it is that with 20 000 - 30 000 applicants, Harvard is bound to have some applicants who are alike in every way except that they are from different places. In that case the only way to decide is to pick the kid who is from an under-represented area in the next class Harvard is building.</p>
<p>So I guess they’re probably a bit hard on Massachusetts students.</p>
<p>Yield is lower for Midwestern applicants as compared to the nation as a whole. So if they want the class to be 20% from the Midwest (I’m making these numbers up), the admit pool might need to be 22% from the Midwest.</p>
<p>Yield is lower for Midwestern applicants as compared to the nation as a whole. So if they want the class to be 20% from the Midwest (I’m making these numbers up), the admit pool might need to be 22% from the Midwest.</p>
<p>Also, they are not hard on Massachusetts students. As has been discussed here before, they openly say that when they’re deciding between two otherwise equal candidates, they’ll give the tip to the one from the Boston area. They view it as part of their obligation to the community that supports them.</p>
<p>Yay for midwestern bias. It’s probably because a lot of people (that I know of at least) don’t like elitism and would be perfectly fine going to a great public school. Overall, I’d say it’s because the culture of the midwest is a lot different from the culture of Harvard.</p>
<p>Being from the Pacific NW and or from places like Miss., Arkansas, Alabama are plusses because relatively few people apply from such states. About a dozen years ago, I heard that only 1 person applied from Miss., and I think he may have been a legacy.</p>
<p>There is definitely more than one applicant from each state (at least in 2009/2010). I currently live in MN and there are about 12 applicants from my school alone each year.</p>
<p>Affirmative action for things that are not inherent like geographic location I’m okay with, frankly. Nobody’s born a NYer or CAer and literally unable to change that.</p>
<p>Northstarmom, is being from the Pacific NW actually helpful? I had always assumed we were lumped in with California and the rest of the west coast.</p>
<p>Oregon, Washington, and Idaho are almost always considered separately from California. The environment is completely different and much more rural.</p>