Are you at a statistical advantage if you apply somewhere far from where you live?

Applying to College
1

<p>For example, I live in Kentucky. If I were to apply to a liberal arts school in Oregon, would I have a higher chance for admission?</p>

2

<p>A bit, yes.</p>

3

<p>To some degree, yes, but not if it’s a well known school that attracts a lot of applicants. Let’s assume you’re talking about Reed. Their geographical distribution is here:
<a href=“Detailed Geographic Distribution of Entering Students - Institutional Research - Reed College”>http://www.reed.edu/ir/geographic_states.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>As you can see, Kentucky is pretty sparsely represented, with five years of the last eight at zero students and the other three at only one. They won’t cut you a break just because you’re from Kentucky, but if you met their admission standards, you’d stand a pretty good chance just based on the fact that they might like to have someone from KY. The key is meeting their standards, that they won’t cut you any slack on. But if you clear that hurdle, sure, you might get a small edge over a similarly ranked kid from California.</p>

4

<p>Expensive at Reed</p>

5

<p>It depends; many universities have such broad national and international stature, that applying from a distant state realistically has NO admissions advantage. However, other schools are less prominent and may desire additional geographic diversity. There simple is no universal answer.</p>

<p>With this said, before you adopt this strategy you may want to check carefully that you are not inadvertently placing yourself in a position were some likely financial aid becomes unattainable. For example, many good, geographically-centric LACs have scholarships that can only be awarded to students from counties a or b, or from a religious denomination’s district c or d, or from a service organization’s chapters in town e or city f. Accordingly if apply from Oregon and the LAC is in Ohio, you may well preclude the award of such grants. </p>

6

<p>You will likely get more money if you apply to a far away school, then if you applied to a school in the tristate area.</p>

7

<p>The boost comes from adding geographic diversity to the school, not from adding frequent flyer miles. There are a HUGE number applicants from populous states like CA. </p>

8

<p>Generally speaking, at almost all LACs and at private universities outside the top 25-30, one gets a boost for admission (as long as you meet academic standards) if one applies from an under-representated State or Region (or anywhere rural), especially if it’s 400+ miles away. How much of a boost depends on how selective the university is; with Reed, or Lewis&Clark, if you meet their standards and they’ve had zero or one admitted students from your State, your odds are very good - and not only that, but you would likely get preferential packaging for financial aid, too, in order to entice you to come, especially if you’re roughly in the top 25% applicants. For large state universities, it depends on the State wrt admission standards and decisions, but you would have to be full pay. </p>

9

<p>

I have no idea where you got this idea. $ are based on either merit or need. Admission MAY get tipped based on geography, and that depends on whether the school values that.</p>