<p>Hello,
I was just wondering if someone could clarify for me if it is true that because I am from Boston, it is easier for me to get into a school on the west coast, such as Stanford. I am in the class of 2011 and am a rising junior. I play sports all seasons, am president of SADD, am in one AP and mostly honors and my GPA is 3.7. Thank you!</p>
<p>No , it’s not true.</p>
<p>are you sure? i went to the q&a at university of maryland, and the dean of admission to the school of social science said that it would be easier for someone from the east coast to get into Stanford than UVA.</p>
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<p>He can not possibly have meant that the way that you presented it. Stanford is one of the hardest schools in the country to be admitted to, admission to UVA is not nearly as hard. Stanford and schools like it want to be well represented geographically but I don’t think there is any shortage of applicants to Stanford from the East Coast. No, I don’t think being from Boston will increase your chances of being admitted.</p>
<p>Lots of people say lots of things to make a point - that does not mean that what they are saying is true.
Stanford does not give any preferences to any geographic area, and being from Boston hardly makes you “unique”.</p>
<p>. . . it might help.</p>
<p>But being from the east coast isn’t a “hook”; plenty of kids from the east apply to Stanford</p>
<p>In other words, it’s a tertiary advantage that may help in a tiebreaker situation, but other than that has no value. Stanford is nationally known.</p>
<p>Wonder if it’d help at Pomona :-)</p>
<p>The Dean of Admission to the UMD school of social science was exaggerating a bit to make a point. Yes, it is probably a little easier to get admitted to Stanford from the East Coast than from California, but we’re talking something like a 7% admit rate vs. 5%. Yes, in general, you maximize your chances for admission by applying to colleges where you are a little bit exotic and add geographical diversity. But that would make a lot more sense if we were talking about USC or Santa Clara, not Stanford. Yes, it’s very competitive for out-of-state kids to get admitted to the most desirable public universities, especially those that are relatively small (UVa) or that have a cap on out-of-state admissions (UNC - Chapel Hill), and the bar is probably highest for people from adjoining states. Yes, in-state admissions at good flagships like UMD is also very competitive.</p>
<p>But, no, it’s not easier to get into Stanford than . . . well, almost anywhere. It’s about the same difficulty to get into Stanford as Harvard or Yale. Princeton. Maybe, for people from Maryland, it’s a little easier to get into Stanford than those colleges, because Maryland produces so many great students, and it’s easy for them to get to the East Coast Ivies, and so lots of them apply there. But it’s MUCH easier – easiER, not easy – to get into UVa, even from Maryland, than it is to get into Stanford.</p>
<p>Out of state:in state ratio for Stanford is 56:44. Stanford loves californians better than east coasters.</p>
<p>I agree 100% with JHS.</p>
<p>The reverse, Junie: Californians love Stanford more than east coasters. As far as I know, that ratio of out of state to in state students is due to a similar discrepancy in the number of applicants, not any geographic preference on the part of the university.</p>
<p>Makes sense. =) so… does that mean its slightly easier for OOS to get into stanford?</p>
<p>no, junie, thats the exact opposite of what he said. 
the ratio of east/west applicants is basically the same as east/west admits. so no, it makes no difference.</p>
<p>i read it wrong OTL</p>
<p>The older statistics (for my year, 2010) were about 40-60 for the California to out-of-state ratio. I know that for the class of 2012 it was about 33 to 67. And it was probably different for the class of 2013.</p>
<p>If you look at geographic representation at HYP but for areas equal in size to California but on the east coast, I’m pretty sure you’ll find a very similar ratio.</p>
<p>Let me post again for Harvard, Princeton and Penn. Just don’t have Stanford’s data.</p>
<p>Geographic Distribution of the Class of 2012 at Harvard, Princeton and Penn
State – Harvard, Princeton, Penn
Alabama – 5, 7, 9
Alaska – 1, 3, 3
Arizona – 16, 6, 16
Arkansas – 1, 1, 3
California – 189, 148, 219
Colorado – 8, 7, 24
Connecticut – 44, 47, 77
Delaware – 5, 4, 7
District of Columbia – 14, 7, 19
Florida – 51, 49, 81
Georgia – 25, 26, 32
Hawaii – 8, 5, 7
Idaho – 1, 0, 3
Illinois – 49, 32, 50
Indiana – 10, 4, 10
Iowa – 3, 4, 9
Kansas – 2, 4, 6
Kentucky – 7, 4, 11
Louisiana – 2, 3, 9
Maine – 9, 5, 5
Maryland – 40, 66, 114
Massachusetts – 216, 58, 82
Michigan – 20, 15, 24
Minnesota – 15, 8, 23
Mississippi – 1, 2, 1
Missouri – 12, 11, 19
Montana – 1, 0, 5
Nebraska – 2, 1, 5
Nevada – 5, 3, 3
New Hampshire – 26, 4, 6
New Jersey – 59, 168, 243
New Mexico – 11, 0, 10
New York – 193, 133, 297
North Carolina – 12, 16, 16
North Dakota – 1, 1, 3
Ohio – 30, 16, 35
Oklahoma – 6, 8, 6
Oregon – 6, 8, 21
Pennsylvania – 48, 77, 397
Rhode Island – 10, 1, 7
South Carolina – 8, 4, 6
South Dakota – 0, 1, 2
Tennessee – 14, 13, 20
Texas – 67, 37, 67
Utah – 5, 3, 7
Vermont – 5, 2, 5
Virginia – 25, 48, 50
Washington – 22, 7, 17
West Virginia – 4, 3, 3
Wisconsin – 11, 9, 12
Wyoming – 1, 0, 2</p>
<p>penn != penn state</p>
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<p>You are absolutely right. They are congruent. :)</p>
<p>The State is the header in my post. I don’t think that I know anything about Penn State.</p>
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<p>Nope. Harvard and Stanford are the same size. Stanford accepts roughly 600-650 kids from California each class. To find that kind of concentration at Harvard, you would have to use all of New England, plus New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania . . . and Delaware, Ohio or Maryland if you wanted to get close to (not over) the upper end of Stanford’s California range. In terms of population, that’s an area 60-80% larger than California.</p>
<p>There’s a reason for that. Harvard, while recognizing that it has a certain mission to New England, has always sought geographic diversity. Stanford probably cares about geographic diversity to some extent, but for a long time its general philosophical position is that California is the most diverse place on Earth, and it doesn’t need to seek geographic diversity to have a diverse student body. That said, I don’t think they want to go much over 40% Californian. I continue to believe that admission to Stanford from places other than California (and maybe New York) is slightly less competitive (in the same sense that the Battle of the Bulge may have been slightly less competitive than Normandy).</p>
<p>A lot of kids around me (in New Jersey) who got into HYPM did not apply to Stanford. For those who applied were rejected. It is extremely hard to get into Stanford if you truly want to. That conception plus Stanford being too far away turn off many people.</p>
<p>JHS,</p>
<p>If you count the big states (i.e. in terms of # students going to Harvard) near Massachusetts, it’s not too different. Also, if you just consider state, 216 students from MA, which has a population of about 6 million, versus about 650 students from CA, which has about 36 million people, who go to Stanford.</p>