<p>In looking at the list of the Top 20 National Universities and the Top 20 LACs, there are some pretty striking examples of colleges with high percentages of in-state students. Is this a big deal? Does it mean that in-state students have some kind of advantage in the application process? Does it mean anything about the quality and nature of the undergraduate experience that a student enjoys? </p>
<p>Here are the facts according to collegeboard.com:</p>
<p>TX 46% Rice
CA 44% Stanford
NY 34% Cornell
CA 32% Cal Tech
GA 29% Emory
NY 26% Columbia
IL 23% Northwestern
IL 22% U Chicago
PA 19% U Penn
NJ 16% Princeton
TN 16% Vanderbilt
NC 15% Duke
MA 14% Harvard
MD 14% J Hopkins
MA 9% MIT
MO 9% Wash U StL
CT 7% Yale
IN 7% Notre Dame
NH 3% Dartmouth</p>
<p>RI na Brown</p>
<p>CA 49% CMC
CA 45% Harvey Mudd
CA 33% Pomona
NY 33% Hamilton
NY 30% Colgate
NY 25% Vassar
MN 23% Carleton
NC 20% Davidson
PA 19% Swarthmore
MA 18% Smith
VA 15% W&L
PA 15% Bryn Mawr
IA 14% Grinnell
MA 13% Wellesley
ME 12% Bowdoin
PA 12% Haverford
MA 11% Williams
MA 10% Amherst
ME 9% Colby
CT 5% Wesleyan
VT 4% Middlebury</p>
<p>In most cases it is because more kids from the state the university is located in apply to that university. I know that it's the case for Northwestern, at least.</p>
<p>jack,
I agree with your Duke comment and their school charter obligation of 13% to NC. </p>
<p>I must admit that I was surprised by more than a few of these. I knew about Rice, Stanford and Caltech. The numbers for three of the Ivies, however, were a revelation. Cornell and Columbia with 34% and 26% respectively from New York State were an eye-opener and especially so given the large size of Cornell (13,562 undergrads). And U Penn at 19% from the state of Pennsylvania was certainly more than I expected. I was also surprised at U Chicago and Northwestern with 22% and 23% respectively from the state of Illinois. These top schools have a greater state/regional bias than their reputations (and marketing) would have you believe.</p>
<p>I had no idea that Stanford is 44%. That's a bit high.</p>
<p>Maybe if you throw in how many applications each school receives from their respective states, that would put these figures in better perspective.</p>
<p>I would say you're at a disadvantage. The reason those percentages are so high are because so many applicants come from those states in comparison with other states. Geographic diversity is a major factor for adcoms, so no it's not an advantage to be in-state.</p>
<p>Hawkette, you have to remember why these trends exist. CA, IL, and New York are very high performing states. If a student has the choice between Stanford and Harvard (if they are a CA resident), what is the reason to turn down the warm weather of Stanford for the cold winters of Harvard?</p>
<p>Don't forget that statistically, a very large % of students prefer to go to college closer to home than farther away. That is going to have a big influence on where they apply in the first place.</p>
<p>"don't forget that Cornell has an in-state component to admissions (but I don't know how many students fall under those programs)."</p>
<p>not any more, it's fair game no matter where you apply. But, a huge % of the applicant pool is still from NY. The contract colleges also offer a discount to NY state students further boosting the # of NY state students in the applicant pool.</p>
<p>Sorry if my comments came across as possibly attacking these schools with high in-state percentages. My reaction was similar to GatorEng23 above where he expresses surprise. I completely understand (or at least I think I do) the demographic make-up of these states and the strength of the students that hail from each. But I'm still a little taken aback by some of the schools high numbers of IS students. For example, I am very surprised that Emory takes 29% of its students from Georgia. In comparison, there were also some examples of relatively low in-state numbers from top schools in relatively highly populated states, eg, MIT (9% from MA) and Wash U (9% from MO).</p>
<p>I guess some legitimate explanations are that the alumni of these schools commonly live in the same state as the college and they get the benefit of any legacy preferences that the school provides. In addition, it is certainly normal for many students to want to attend a high quality university that is physically near their home. For example, I would expect U Penn to get a large number of applications from the Philadelphia area. </p>
<p>But the lesson that I got from this was that while nearly all of these schools trumpet their reputations as a National University, some may be a lot more regional and local than many of us realize.</p>
<p>I think most are very regional, including all of the Ivies. If one were to include all of New England in the stats for Harvard or Yale, I'd guess both would be around 40%. (That's about the size of California....) New York students make up a huge percentage of those going to the ivies, so those ivies falling in NY are going to look more provincial than those outside of NY. I believe Rice has something in their charter about prefering Texas students.</p>
<p>You need at least the rate of admission before you can even begin to consider whether there is an advantage or disadvantage based on states. Stanford may have 44% of its students from instate, but I'm willing to bet that more people applied to Stanford from CA than any other state (maybe even all other states combined)</p>
<p>If anybody has the time to divide the percentage in state by the state's population, that will give a more accurate picture. California is by far the most populous state (2 or 3 times more populated than most "populated states"). So, I bet Stanford and Harvard are not that far off. Ok, I'll do Stanford and HArvard:</p>
<p>Stanford 44 (percent in state)/34 (million people) = 1.3
Harvard 14 (percent in state)/6 (million people) = 2.3 </p>
<p>So, the real surprise should be that HArvard takes in almost twice the ratio of in state people as Stanford</p>
<p>Russ, thats such a flawed ratio that I won't even comment on it. Ok, I just did, but you need to use % applied, not how many people are in the state.</p>
<p>Being from where I live, it def. is an advantage when applying to Penn. The difference between people going to Penn and people going to other Ivies is fairly large. 15 to Penn compared to maybe 3 or 4 at most at one of the other Ivies. Not to mention some people's parents are professors at Penn.</p>
<p>If you expand those numbers outside of just the individual stat, and into the actual region (North East, Midwest, etc) you'll see just how 'regional' schools really are.</p>
<p>kk19131,
Maybe this has been raised before on CC before I got here or perhaps you just knew it from another source, but I gotta tell you that I was surprised by several of the schools. The reputations of these schools are so impressive and many do all they can to promote the idea of this great, geographically diverse student body and so on. I guess I was naive and bought it and so I am a little jarred when I learn the facts. </p>
<p>As for your suggestion on the regional stats, I am working on that and hope to have something of value soon. My early read is that your statement is on the money.</p>