<p>is it true that you live close to a certain college, it will increase your chances of acceptance?</p>
<p>for example, I live in the philadelphia area, and it seems that an abnormally high number of students each year from my school get into upenn</p>
<p>Probably a high number of students from your school apply to upenn. Far fewer would apply to a school a thousand miles away. You would need to find out the *percentage *of students from your high school that were accepted to see if it is higher or lower than the overall acceptance rate.</p>
<p>^excellent point. but the thing is, the students who ARE accepted- their quality does not seem as high as that of other people accepted from other areas (at least thats what I see from CC). in other words, they seem to lower standards for us. but this is speculation on my part</p>
<p>I’ve always assumed that they like to admit people from far away, in order to get geographic diversity.</p>
<p>Or maybe you just know the local people better than you know the far-away people. And familiarity breeds contempt.</p>
<p>I have wondered this too.
I live near USC and every year, most of the graduating class gets accepted (75% who apply are accepted, 15% attend), even those with sub-par grades/scores and no hooks.</p>
<p>I can tell you for sure that doesn’t happen for Stanford. Only 2-4 students from my school go, may be around 5-6 get accepted.</p>
<p>yup, a lot of people say it’s to “serve the surrounding community” hm</p>
<p>Harvard says it gives a small boost to applicants from Cambridge - to “serve the surrounding community.”</p>
<p>It’s typically because the kids are legacies, local athletes who are always known to local scouts, staff kids, the low income they want to support from the area…the typical kid gets no boost.</p>
<p>
Which USC? That description doesn’t mesh with SoCal’s standards.</p>
<p>For Stanford, getting 5-6 students accepted is a lot. I go to a pretty decent school, and we have never had a single person accepted to Stanford.</p>
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<p>It’s more than facbrats, legacies, and athletes. Harvard has been quite explicit over the years about the boost they give to local kids: </p>
<p>[5</a> questions for Harvard’s admissions dean - The Boston Globe](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2009/02/24/5_questions_for_harvards_admissions_dean/?page=2]5”>http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2009/02/24/5_questions_for_harvards_admissions_dean/?page=2)</p>
<p>Dean Fitzsimmons:</p>
<p>“First and foremost, Harvard will always be a Massachusetts and New England institution. We work extremely hard on our recruiting and outreach in Massachusetts and New England because we feel it is vital for Harvard to play an important role in educating the future leaders from the place that has done so much to shape its mission. We have always had a policy of admitting a Boston or Cambridge student over others when the credentials are approximately equal.”</p>
<p>We usually have about 6 matriculations Harvard+Stanford. Assume some students get into both. The school is in Norcal, top 50 public school in the nation.</p>
<p>
We’ve had a few Stanford acceptances from up here in Tri-State NY but every year it seems Stanford gets way harder for us. I don’t think anyone got in EA this year and the applicants as far as I know were pretty outstanding…Maybe there is a coastal bias, because we send a lot more kids to the Ivies, and the differences are too drastic to claim self-selection as the sole cause.</p>
<p>Also in Norcal. Last year, we sent 4 to Stanford versus 2 each to Yale, Princeton and Harvard, and 12 to Berkeley versus 0 to UVA. But that could be less a reflection of the schools’ preferences than the students’. Out here, S is considered to be every bit as desirable as HYP, and much closer to home.</p>
<p>Remember that the admissions counselors for these schools also live locally. They know much better the reputation of the local high schools. They probably know some of the teachers, perhaps parents, etc - this is their home, too. </p>
<p>And I’m sure there’s a bit of the “serve the local community” too - they need it to support and improve town-gown relationships.</p>
<p>Living in an Ivy League town, I know this is 100% true. In fact, the “second tier” of students tend to apply ED to the local university while the top students apply elsewhere, leaving that really really excellent school as their safety. </p>
<p>In addition, the majority of parents of top kids are faculty. It’s pretty hard to say “no” to a professor’s kid when the professor brought in 5 mil in grants last year etc. Think about it.</p>
<p>An earlier poster mentioned USC… If the USC you mean is University of Southern California, then yes, preference is given to kids from the surrounding community. As is often mentioned on cc forums, USC is in South-Central LA, an area where kids face many obstacles to getting a college education. USC administers many neighborhood programs aimed at getting local kids ready for college, and does give preference to them in the admissions process. USC students are continuously encouraged to participate in tutoring and mentoring programs in the local K-12 schools. [K-12/College</a> Prep | Our Communities](<a href=“http://communities.usc.edu/education/k12.html]K-12/College”>http://communities.usc.edu/education/k12.html)</p>
<p>So yes, at University of Southern California there is an admissions advantage to being from a local school.</p>
<p>In general, private colleges receive more applications from the areas immediately around them. Perhaps your school has a clause in its charter to serve people from Pennsylvania as Duke does. It could also be the case that your school has exceptionally good relations with UPenn–sometimes high schools become well-known to adcoms from a particular college, and adcoms know that students are receiving a vigorous high school education and will do well at that particular institution</p>