<p>I'm currently a junior at large public school in South Carolina.</p>
<p>Without going into too much detail, next year, I'll be applying to some very good schools, probably not Ivies, but BC, CMU, Berkeley, NYU Stern, and a few other schools in that range, primarily in the northeast. </p>
<p>I was wondering if I would have an advantage, coming from a state with, let's face it, below par public education system, over someone with the same stats from a state like Massachusetts or California?</p>
<p>Would coming from SC generally help, or hurt my admission chances compared to an identical student from a state that college widely accept students from?</p>
<p>I would imagine they do it based on the town/village/city/high school demographics; the state is way too broad. There are rich and poor places in every state. Just because you come from SC doesn’t mean you’re poor, and just because you come from NJ doesn’t mean you’re rich.</p>
<p>I agree with the person above. Just because you’re from a certain state doesn’t mean that you will get into a college more easily. However, if you live in a disadvantaged area such as inner city schools, you might have a better chance.</p>
<p>Hope you get in to wherever you want to go :)</p>
<p>You must be from a wealthy family if you consider Berkeley out-of-state or NYU to be realistically affordable. So you may not get much in the way of points for “overcoming adverse circumstances of poverty” or anything like that.</p>
<p>For your question, it’s not about your state- or even community- as much as how much you personally accomplished in your specific context. As an extreme example, if you go to the worst hs in the state, you are still expected to have selected rigorous courses and excelled, had a nice balance of activities and good support from LoRs. There are plenty of high achieving kids in SC who could be your competition. Even if you came from a truly blighted part of the country, you’d still be expected to show you have the stuff to succeed at those colleges. Good Luck.</p>
<p>Colleges emphasize geographic diversity in addition to ethnic, racial, and other factors. As a result, people from states that, overall, have fewer applicants do, in fact, have a better shot at being accepted.</p>
<p>marama is correct and southern students in particular tend to be under-represented elsewhere in the country. At lots of our college tours in the NE and midwest, they asked who was visiting from the south, and very few, if any, hands went up. Those kids just don’t like to go far from home! Maybe it’s the weather?</p>
<p>I agree with marama. I think that coming from South Carolina is a big plus for you as you bring diversity to the schools that you have mentioned are your targets.</p>
<p>In addition to your transcripts, most HS counselors are required/requested to submit a document called the ‘school profile,’ to the schools if a Naviance or other such programs are not available.</p>
<p>This profile is meant to put you and your accomplishments in context of your specific HS’s data, rather than your state’s data, as part of your file for the folks reading your application. </p>
<p>The profile summarizes: how many kids are in your school - in your grade - the rigor of available classes - the average GPA’s of your grade - AP or IB’s on offer - the graduation and drop-out rates - how many kids are eligible for 'subsidized school lunche (meaning low-income) - how many kids go on to both 2 and 4-year colleges - public vs. private - in-state and out-of-state - etc.</p>
<p>The admission folks consider the data to get a better idea as to what a rigorous course load would look like at your school, considering all of the factors that may not be obvious on the surface. The profile is one of the ways AdCom’s gain access to those factors.</p>