<p>I dont think you relize that a town of 300,000 is huge, and are not a country hick. You should be able to find tons of things in such a big town. Try living in a town under 5,000, I probably have less oppertunities then you do.</p>
<p>I live in a relatively poor area in southern New Mexico. I too, before collegeconfidential, was under the impression that if I got good grades, straight A’s, and stayed involved in a club or two, that I would be able to get into any Ivy of my choosing. For things like research and internships, I hadn’t even heard of people being able to do those things until I went on CC my junior year, and certainly nobody at my school was involved in either of those. I also had never heard of these big competitions, Siemens and the like, and nobody at my school has ever competed in any of them. I definitely felt disadvantaged when applying to college and reading through chance threads (especially when I see things like people being involved in 5-6 different national honor societies… my school has one), but there wasn’t really anything I could do about it. I’m heading to a top LAC next month though, so I guess it’s not always a shot in the dark when applying to top schools from an area with little opportunity.</p>
<p>The flip side is that there are times when it is an advantage to be from a smaller state. FBLA ( Future Business Leaders of America has state competitions that qualify for nationals. It is much more impressive to win in California or NY or a populous state where you have to defeat 10-20x more competitors than in a smaller state like Delaware or Wyoming ( no offense to either state). Both are state champions but one had an easier road, the one in the smaller state. The same would go for athletics…</p>
<p>@jandjdad</p>
<p>That is very true. Our state conventions for clubs are pretty easy because most chapter either a.) aren’t represented or b.) aren’t very good due to lack of funding/numbers. Except for FFA, those kids are crazy :)</p>
<p>@jandjdad</p>
<p>I cant help but to just point out a couple disadvantages to being in a small state in regards to competitions like fbla and such.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The chapters don’t exist everywhere, and there not be teachers at the school who would like to have one. I remember looking up a competition a couple of days ago – it had competitors from “virtually every state”, mine excluded. Even if the competition is offered at your state, your participation eligibility depends on the school. Although States do grant things like Geographic exemptions to go to a different school, its not practical for most kids to go anywhere but the local high school.</p></li>
<li><p>Although winning the state title could be a piece of cake, winning nationally is virtually impossible. For example, I recently participated in national history day. At the awards ceremony, guess which states won no national awards? States in which the state title was easily won. And because the competition is so easy at their state level, they have little incentive to ever do better.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>@chenoa</p>
<p>I feel like that is just a fact of life. Think of all the good teams that get beat out and a lesser team gets to go to a national tournament. Isn’t that just as unfair?</p>
<p>@twix123</p>
<p>Haha, I meant the “country hick” thing in jest. I do realize I have a lot compared to students from rural areas (my mom grew up in a town of 500… she tells me a lot of stories… she hardly knew what Harvard was…), but compared to well-funded schools in a number of large, urban areas…</p>
<p>First off, calling MA a large state is laughable and hilarious. We stand at barely 7 million. Comparing that to TX and CA is like comparing apples to oranges. </p>
<p>…okay, now that i’ve recovered from my good long laugh, you’ve got MA all wrong. I will agree that there are fantastic opportunities here, but it’s because overall MA has a fantastic school system and overall performance is nearly unmatched. </p>
<p>Key word is overall. Just so you know, the Boston metropolitan area has a population of just over 4.3 million. Apart from Worcester and that area, farther west is the boonies (including Springfield). There is nothing out there, the schools are not great and it is literally the middle of nowhere. Boston proper stands at 620k, and over 1/3rd of that is college students. People crow over the success of Boston Latin, but BPS is ridiculed here. There’s a reason why METCO is a popular program. </p>
<p>So the towns and cities outside Boston are where you want to be. The W’s, etc., but these places are PAINFULLY small. My town HS has 800 kids for a town of 13k, ranked in the top 10, and we have almost none of these things that other CC’ers fawn over. I feel the academic approach here is different, at my school and other recognized schools there is little emphasis on AP and stuff like that, it’s about delivering a quality and well-rounded education, not shoving facts down your throat so you can regurgitate them for the AP exam. Education is just taken very seriously here, as Boston is a very educated city. </p>
<p>I realize that was the mother of all tangents (also it’s almost midnight and i’m on my phone, so be gentle), but you guys have MA, a ‘small’ state (although dense in the metro area) very wrong. </p>
<p>/metro m*******</p>
<p>California is a very large and diverse state. I live in a town in California with less than 5000 residents and only one business. I also have less common interests which makes volunteering opportunities very rare.</p>
<p>The states have little to do with it, it’s the specific area one is from. Here there’s a huge difference in opportunity between rural area or Flint and West Bloomfield for example. Likewise upstate vs NYC or rural CA/Beverly Hills. It’s cause this country is so unbelievably segregated and such wealth inequality that even in the same city the differences are vast.</p>
<p>They like geographic diversity but they won’t take a risk on <em>really</em> small towns. I just want to clarify this for those saying it’s negligible, that adcoms just want to see you work with what you’ve got. Maybe it’ll be amusing too. Well my town has pop: 800. You need top test scores to even have a chance, cause the colleges rightly perceive that everyone has a step-mom or 2nd cousin or some such teaching them and their best friends. The number of Mrs. Kline’s I could not count on one hand. You aren’t gonna get perfect test scores with that education, when they don’t even offer Trig or chem! </p>
<p>There’s next to no oversight or accountability. We did nothing but watch movies for 2 months straight in Spanish 2. Every single one of us were given As (the teacher said this) cause “you’re good people.” We didn’t take a single test all semester. The classes are a complete joke and most go to CC, military, or unemployed. Ivys? Not a chance. We weren’t even told about SATs. Kids that get 25 on ACT (state law to take this) get praised like they’re gonna be a Nobel laureate. There were no APs, IB, no internet for our house till this year. </p>
<p>For ECs, they couldn’t even manage a band and there was like 2-3 sports. Oh and some nerd wrote a column for the town paper once a month. Till you’re able to drive, 1.5hr bus rides. If you sneeze the whole town will be told about it. Yeah, it’s an uphill battle. It’s definitely not a wash. Am I bitter about it? No, that’s life, could be worse. I’ll be going to a top public college and won’t have to take out any loans. Look at it this way: odds of getting into Princeton would suck even if you were from those places and could do research.</p>
<p>@runallday4 @BionicMan</p>
<p>I’m in the same boat. I’m from a less populated state in the Southwest and will be applying high, including a few Ivies. I’ve been told that coming from a less populated state that also sends very few to OOS colleges is a very helpful boost.</p>
<p>I think that talking about one’s frustrations in finding opportunities and dealing with the small town mentality could make a good essay, as long as you make it look like overcoming challenges and not making excuses.</p>
<p>@Elleya</p>
<p>I apologize for the misconceptions. The general idea I’m getting from people’s posts is that it is wealthy, urban areas, in general… Not so much the state one is in.</p>
<p>Well, Boston metro is relatively wealthy, but MA as a whole is not urban compared to CA or TX. </p>
<p>Sorry, that’s like my uh…I dunno what it is, but I do jump because I feel MA is actually really underrepresented here on CC.</p>
<p>I live in suburban Jersey. Yeah, we have tons of opportunities, but the competition is SOO much harder than in a smaller state.</p>
<p>I live in Alaska. The opportunities are there, and we’re a smaller state, which means less competition. (yay?)</p>
<p>I think the population of the state has little to do with it. Honestly if you’re talking about opportunities at your school it just depends on how much money the school district gets, how much is given to your school, and how much the PTA at your school raises. If we’re still talking about opportunities at your specific school, you also have to include who all is going to your school. There are a few really big highschools in my school district, but the only reason I think they are so ‘big’ is because people zoned for the schools are both rich and poor (black and white, hispanic and asian). These schools are the most competitive schools (alot of students who go to them go to top colleges afterwards) and receive a ton of funding. </p>
<p>If a school has more funding, there are bound to be more chances of more AP classes offered (along with a sizeable amount of students willing to take them), different varieties of classes (my highschool offers like 6 different languages up to level 5/AP. My highschool is also very career technical, so we have classes like auto-tech, fashion merchandising, sports medicine, engineering etc). Along with more classes, your school can afford things like smart boards and new textbooks and extra labs. </p>
<p>If you mean opportunities in the community… it just depends. I live in charlotte, NC–one of the largest banking cities in the world. I dont know if we have many opportunities here (alot of kids in my school district got put in the talent search done by Duke University, talent searches can be really good for alot of stuff), but we do have the DNC (democratic national convention) coming to town, and an internship was available to students through our school district. We get to meet alot of people who have been with obama since the beginning, and learn alot about politics (honestly, not my cup of tea, but its a great opportunity that literally only comes once). </p>
<p>Oh one other thing, I wouldnt say just because you live in a smaller town (or go to a smaller school) that it is less competitive. Schools that dont offer AP generally have classes that only the smartest people take (like the physics class might be really hard, and the equivalent to the AP class).</p>
<p>But if you want to go to Yale and you dont think you stand a chance–theres tons of things you can take into your own hands even if your school doesnt offer it. </p>
<p>-tons of people self study AP classes. you could squeeze in a few and it would look really great on a college app. (as long as you get 5s anyways.)</p>
<p>-if your school doesnt have clubs you like or are interested in then start your own. Showing this kind of leadership and initiative is something colleges REALLY like.</p>
<p>-start a fundraiser for your community or better yet, for a national or international cause. You can do this by just starting fundraisers (bakesales and stuff), or you could make a website or sometihng (like this site that helps you leanr french/any other language vocab and for every question you get right you get a certain amount of rice in a bowl, and the rice you get is sent to africa). </p>
<p>-try and get internships over the summer. Stay with family in a bigger city if you cant find any in your town. Just find something that your interested in, and that is semi-serious (so at a real business/firm).</p>
<p>-sign up for things like World Vision. Put out a few grand (pricey yes… there might be financial aid for these things but i dont know), apply, and go to africa on a sort of mission trip (exluding the spread your religion part). Looks really good. </p>
<p>-Ace your exams and keep getting straight A’s.</p>
<p>Yup… Come to Maryland, especially Bethesda, Rockville and general DC beltway area. Many kids in high school have some sort of an internship at the NIH, USDA, NASA Goddard, John Hopkins APL, etc. by the time they graduate high school.</p>