<p>I'm curious what states you guys think are the best and worst states to be applying from. For example, if someone is applying to college from CT or NY, s/he is applying from a state with a lot of applicants. How does this factor into college admissions?</p>
<p>Thoughts? Opinions? Ideas?</p>
<p>I’d be interested in knowing this too. Colleges seem to take pride on having “X students from each of the 50 states,” but I don’t know how that translates into admissions. </p>
<p>If it is a factor, applicants from rural states and ones in the southeastern US would probably be given a bit of an edge… (I’m hoping that’s true, being from Tennessee… haha.)</p>
<p>I do know from a Vanderbilt admissions officer that that school claims to be geographically blind, but I can’t say as to whether or not this is typical.</p>
<p>Just because the student is from the states you mentioned, doesn’t mean there will be lots of “competition” from other students in his/her state, for the colleges where he/she is applying. There are just way too many variables.</p>
<p>Yeah, definitely. However, there’s a far greater chance of there be lots of applicants to X college from your state if your state is highly populated. I was researching the number of admissions officers assigned to read from each state for a variety of colleges, and for many states there will be one admissions officer and for some there will be more like 10. I have to wonder whether or not colleges are more selective when it comes to students from highly populated states because they don’t want to fill their incoming classes with mainly kids from CT, CA, MA, etc. </p>
<p>I don’t know… it’s just something I’ve been thinking about.</p>
<p>There’s no way to answer your question. It depends entirely on the school, which further depends in part on geography as far more people apply to colleges in or near their home state than far away. Also, Connecticut is just a medium-sized state by population; only about 35,000 students a year take the SAT there, so the premise of your question, that there are a lot of college applicants from Connecticut, is simply wrong. Of those 35,000, only about 28,000 bother to send their SAT scores to a college—which presumably they would do if they’re applying and the college requires it, so # of scores sent becomes a pretty good proxy for the number of applicants (at least in SAT-dominant states like NY and CT)… Of those who do send in scores, the most popular college by far is UConn, which gets scores from 42.8% of Connecticut score-senders. The next most popular are Central Connecticut State (22.1%), Southern Connecticut State (18.5%), Eastern Connecticut State (13.5%), Western Connecticut State (10.9%), and Quinnipiac (9.8%)—all in-state schools, though Quinnipiac is private. In fact, of the 30 colleges most applied to by Connecticut residents, all are either in Connecticut, elsewhere in New England (mostly in neighboring Massachusetts or Rhode Island), or in neighboring New York. Only when you get down to #31 and below do Connecticut residents venture to apply to schools as far away as Pennsylvania (Penn State, Villanova, Penn) and DC (Georgetown, GW). In short, Connecticut residents are inveterate stay-at-homes; not many venture outside the Northeast for college, and relatively few leave Connecticut and immediately adjacent states.</p>
<p>As for Connecticut residents applying to Ivies: well, nearby Yale is reasonably popular (1,444 Connecticut residents had their SAT scores sent there, about one-tenth as many as sent them to UConn), as are Brown (1,192) in neighboring Rhode Island and Cornell (1,165) in neighboring New York. But Dartmouth (804), Harvard (774), Penn (764), and Columbia (734) barely make the top 45 most popular colleges for Connecticut residents, and Princeton doesn’t show up at all–so its number must be lower than GW’s 730, at #45. These are not huge numbers of people applying to the Ivies from Connecticut. And even smaller numbers of Connecticut residents apply to top schools in other parts of the country, like Stanford or Chicago. So you can’t ask the question in a general way assuming Connecticut applicants are going to be numerous at every college, or at every elite college. They’re not.</p>
<p>New York is another matter; that’s a truly large state. There, about 160,000 take the SAT annually—almost 5 times as many as in Connecticut. But the stay-at-home pattern is the same: of the 30 most popular colleges for New Yorkers (as measured by where they send SAT scores, a pretty good proxy for where they apply), 27 are in New York State, and 18 of them, including 8 of the top 10, are public. Cornell is pretty popular with New Yorkers (9,618 apps/SAT scores), Columbia a little less so (5,222). Brown chugs in with 3,235. The rest of the Ivies don’t make the 45 most popular among New Yorkers. </p>
<p>So from these limited data I’d say it might be a disadvantage to apply to Yale, Brown, or Cornell if you’re a Connecticut resident, just because you’re in competition with so many other local applicants; and to Cornell, Columbia, or Brown if you’re a New York resident, for the same reason. Other than that, I don’t think we have any basis for saying the residents of either these two states are going to be at a disadvantage at any other top schools.</p>
<p>I get your point. I think I phrased my question/comment incorrectly. I didn’t just mean CT, I simply meant states that are known for often being “feeder” states to some of the top schools like the ivys. I was basing this THEORY on some info I found on the yale website. CT has the highest number or admissions officers per person in the state. I think CT has 8 or something and NY has 11, but NY is so much bigger than CT, so 8 admissions officers is a lot. MA also has a ton of admissions officers. </p>
<p>I agree that it’s tough to come to a conclusion and that there are a lot of factors involved. I was simply looking for opinions and thoughts though because it’s something I’ve been thinking about lately-- wondering how my chances will/might be affected at a couple specific top schools. </p>
<p>Thanks for your input and for those statistics.</p>
<p>Lol nobody wants kids from New Jersey</p>
<p>Have read, a few times, that California, Illinois, and NY were the most impacted states as far as providing college applicants. I know that one’s chances go waaaaay up if they’re from under-represented states–the Dakotas, Wyoming, Idaho, the South, Maine, New Hampshire. I heard that some years you can write your own ticket from Deleware.</p>
<p>If you’re from just about any state, you can use your geographic advantage, but it only usually applies as you move further and further away from your home state. I think NC is an excellent state for colleges (at least in my humble, biased opinion) because we’ve got the advantage of a) in-state admissions at UNC, which is pretty sweet and b) geographic advantages elsewhere. I was surprised that I had a slight geographic advantage at Kenyon because Ohio doesn’t seem too far, but it seems as though many non-southern schools lack NC kids (or at least the ones at which I’ve been looking). Reed, for example, is all the way across the country and they have a pathetic number of North Carolinians (3 total?).</p>
<p>Anyway, I’d say that the best states are those with “public ivies” as backup plans.</p>
<p>“Reed, for example, is all the way across the country and they have a pathetic number of North Carolinians (3 total?)”</p>
<p>Three freshmen this year, 12 in the past four years. ;)</p>
<p>Being from CT, I can tell you that bclintonk’s assessment is correct - most students do apply to, and attend, in-state schools like UConn, Central, and Southern. However, I think the OP’s point is valid - CT tends to have a disproportionate amount of kids applying to top schools for its smaller population. It’s rumored to be much harder to get into certain top schools from Fairfield County especially.</p>
<p>California is horribly overrepresented…Bay Area in particular… :(</p>
<p>I agree with CaliforniaDancer. California is way too overrepresented. Specifically SoCal and the Bay Area. On top of that, if you’re an Asian, you basically have to cure cancer to get into a good private. Take for example my friend who was on Jeopardy, 11th place National Science Olympiad, and 1st Place National Science bowl. He has a 2390, 3.98 UW, 4.82 W. Applied to Yale EA, and yet still got rejected. (Btw he’s Korean =.=).</p>
<p>So yeah, coming from California sucks.</p>
<p>Let me tell you how this equals out. </p>
<p>If your from an overrepresented state, the chances are that you probably have better resources to do well academically. If you’re from an underrepresented state, you probably don’t have as much in your favor. </p>
<p>But if you’re applying to Yale, apply from Wyoming. They haven’t accepted anyone from that state in the last three years.</p>
<p>Do all colleges report how many students they have from each state? I haven’t been able to find that anywhere that I’ve looked.</p>
<p>^ I haven’t heard of a uniform reporting mechanism for it, something like the Common Data Set. It looks like some do, most don’t.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>They definitely track it, but whether they publicly report it is up to their Spin department, er, Marketing.</p>
<p>Agreed. Jersey’s so competitive and just about everyone applies to the Big 3 and just about every Ivy + Stanford.</p>
<p>I’m from Central Jersey where it’s basically the middle class, and the students here are either really competitive or not at all (and those don’t apply for the top schools). I’m sure it’s like this in other states, but I’m only speaking from experience (I’ve heard NY, PA, and CA are pretty competitive as well).</p>
<p>I agree that it depends what school - for instance, I was going to apply to UC Berkeley, but the in-state versus out-of-state acceptance and tuition rates broke that deal for me. Just about everyone in Jersey knows at least 3 people who went to Rutgers so that one probably favored towards Jersey residents.</p>
<p>I’m still split on whether Princeton would prefer in-state or out-of-state (we already know all the Ivys prefer international). I didn’t apply there (<em>gasp</em> probably one of the rare Jersey students who didn’t), but I’m just curious.</p>
<p>NC’s seems to be a decent state to be from. Not only because of UNC…Duke also gives preference to in-state students. And we have pretty good resources (Gov’s school, esp) without the disadvantage of being CT or NY. But I’m not sure we’re underrepresented…just not overrepresented.</p>
<p>@ glassesarechic: I think I can say the same thing for Michigan (my state). I actually live in Ann Arbor, so there’s an excellent university right in the middle of town, and plenty of people from across the state apply to it too. I don’t think Michigan is under-represented at the top schools, but it’s certainly not as over-represented as states like New York, Massachusetts, California, or New Jersey.</p>