<p>I go to high school in Indiana. The Midwest as a whole is really not known for intelligence, and I assume that Ivy League schools and highly selective west coast schools receive relatively few applications from the Midwest. Will this give me an advantage over other students with identical credentials from either the east or west coasts? Also, is going to a public or a private school a bigger advantage?</p>
<p>“The Midwest as a whole is really not known for intelligence”</p>
<p>Well this is certainly a head shaker. Evidence of the same I guess…</p>
<p>Your state is not underrepresented enough to likely give you a geographic advantage. Maybe if you were from North Dakota.</p>
<p>And even if you were from ND or WY, you still have to meet their needs. And one of those is that you are smart enough to self-edit.</p>
<p>I would not say the geographical difference to be the reason, but a smaller suburb high school that sent less students to a prestigious school may have a small average with the same credential. If a highly competitive private high school with 20% students having the same credential as the top 2% of students in a small suburb school, the latter would have a better chance.</p>
<p>Actually, the Midwest has a pretty good reputation overall academically among public schools.
Anyway: yes you’d have an advantage if you applied to areas where typically fewer midwesterners apply, ie., Deep South, Texas, Southwest and to a certain extent Oregon/Washington.</p>
<p>
Probably. So would being one of the astronauts that walked on the moon. The point is that neither is going to actually happen to you. There is not going to be another kid with the same test scores, classes taken, grades, and almost identical essays and letters of rec. So judgement is involved on who presents the better overall package. The role state of residence plays in all this is both small and impossible to tease out.</p>