<p>How much bearing will nearby students' success, either within my own school or in my region, have on my own acceptance chances at schools like Harvard? I'm not sure if my friends and I are being overly paranoid or if the idea of regional competition is true in practice. </p>
<p>Although I’m sure Harvard, the other Ivies, and the top LACs all practice some form of geographic diversity, the idea that any one student will benefit or suffer from it is remote, except at perhaps the smaller LACs. At the Ivies, you stand a far greater chance of being knocked out from a multitude of factors that are much greater than competition from your classmates or other people from the Northeast. If you don’t make it, rest assured than 9,999 times out of ten thousand, it wasn’t because Biff from New Paltz beat you out of the last spot.</p>