Does where you live affect your chances for admission to ivy leagues?Do students from certain states in the US stand to be in a better position than others?
A little bit. Colleges that espouse holistic admissions (Ivies included) will give you a better edge if you’re a kid from ND than one from MA. They like to have geographic diversity. Not an absolute deal-breaker, but at the tippy-tops, you’ll take what you can get.
It would be the tiniest of a bump, almost miniscule.
Sometimes it would matter a lot more than you’d think. For example, if you were a top student at a city with a high crime rate or lack of opportunity like the rural cities of West Virginia or Nebraska, Oakland CA, North Richmond, Detroit, you’d certainly be given an upper hand. If not, then it would be only a tiny bump since colleges would consider you in the context of your peers.
Being in a crime-ridden/low opportunity rural city and being in a less-than-ideal high school would certainly give you an upper hand. I think the OP was asking about certain states. A bad high school in a rural part of ND won’t give you much of a bump over a bad high school in another part of GA, for example.
If your state sends few students oos and/or has few you people, it helps in a tie breaker.
Being a top student in the Dakotas, Nebraska, Wyoming, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Iowa… Does help at top colleges.