Geographic Disadvantages/ School Disadvantages?

Applying to College
1

How much does your geographic location affect your chance of getting accepted into such-and-such college?

Let’s say a friend of mine lives in California and really, really wants to get into Yale or another Ivy League. Another lives in the South/Mid-Atlantic region (North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, etc.) and also wants to go to an Ivy. Does their geographic location affect their chances by much? What if the one in California goes to a high ranking private school and the other a (somewhat) well known, reputable public high school? Vice-versa?

What if one of them focuses a lot on only one activity, like Girl Scouts, speech and debate, Key Club, etc, and the other goes into less depth in a few more activities, like a Beta Club, NHS, Art/Music Club, DECA, etc? Assuming both their essays and teacher recommendations were equally impressive, how would their chances in comparison to each other hold up?

2

At some schools the geography can affect chances. None of the states you list would be among the ones with advantage. Think Montana. Some private schools can be considered feeders to competitive schools. It’s evident from their Naviance data.

3

Smaller schools focus more on geography than larger schools. Last year I was at Washington & Lee which is an elite school in Virginia and they highlighted having at least one student from every state.

As far as activities, it is better to be totally absorbed and excel in one activity than show up for ten just to pad the application.

4

@Erin’s Dad So would going to an all-girls/all-boys religious prep school with high tuition in California give you an advantage over someone in North Carolina or Maryland? Would HYPSM try and get a more diverse student body, or not really have a preference?

@crabby955 Would doing multiple areas in debate or DECA still count as one activity? What if you do multiple activities with a little less depth because you enjoy them with plenty of accomplishments, versus one activity and lots of trophies as well?

5

Also, I neglected to mention something else. The public high school I go to is pretty good, usually 5 or 6 going to Yale each year. There has been one who went to Harvard, 2 or 3 to MIT, one at Stanford, and I think one at Princeton. The one in California has a 100% graduation rate and is ranked highly in the state (maybe country). I have no idea where they typically go to for college, though.

6

The colleges will look at geography through their own unique lenses. If they think that being born in a more rural area helps in terms of the diversity of the incoming freshman class, then they will take a deeper look into the applicant.
However, geography plays a very minor role in admissions. I believe Princeton accepted 0 students out of Nebraska (a commonly thought to be underrepresented state).
Private School vs. Public School I think matters only a little. Public obviously means more kids and therefore EC’s like ASB President will hold significantly more weight as they are the leader of thousands of kids at their school.
In terms of rankings, top schools will obviously have an advantage as they have a reputation for producing top students and so if you are a higher rank in a top high school, it will hold significant weight as the school is known to be competitive. On the flip side, if you hold a slightly lower class rank, then admissions officers would know that the school is competitive and account that into the admissions process.

If I were an admissions officer, I would prefer a person who goes in-depth into one activity. A person who does a bunch of activities seems to not have the strongest direction, and it may seem like resume-padding, but this is all based on a surface description alone.

For the intangibles, I thin teacher recs and essays are far, far more important than stuff like geographic location and high school ranking. It’s very hard to say they’re equally impressive as both essays will offer two different opinions on the topic. I think the school will decide which opinion they think fits best at their school (in terms of constructing a well-rounded class).

I think your friend(s) should not worry about these things they cannot change. Let them strive to change what they can actually change (by asking for recs early/starting essays early).

Good luck to your friend on his/her college admissions process!

7

Since geographic diversity, race, gender, etc are things you really can’t control, don’t worry about it. There’s really no way to pin this stuff down as it is a case by case basis as with each school.

8

Geography does matter. If you come from the NY/NJ/CT area for example you will see an amazing degree of commonality in applications. You can’t pin it down I realize that but common sense tells you that instead of applying to Villanova if you aren’t in the upper mid 50% or top 25% of applicants you apply outside the application band to stay out of the area application traffic. Holy Cross or St. Lawrence might be a better strategy than Villanova for someone from the tristate area. Just an example.

And yes to the question above about EC’s. Schools are looking for outstanding achievement in something other than schoolwork. A laundry list of showing up has little to no value.

9

Are you worried you’re missing some boost somehow? Let me tell you – if your school gets 5-6 Yale admits any given year – you’re fully resourced. 95% of HS in this country would like a single Yale or Harvard admit in a decade. You don’t have much of a perspective….

10

Schools like Yale et al. get so many applications from students all across the country and the world that I doubt any one geographic location would give a student a leg up in admissions. But mid-Atlantic states and California are pretty common places to be from there, so I really doubt that either of those would affect your admissions one way or the other. Won’t help, won’t hurt.

Really, geographic considerations are such a tiny thing for most colleges that I wouldn’t expect it to be a factor at all.

11

Imagine you have a grid, and each square is a certain type of student. Types are defined by: geography, race, ECs, stats, interests, Etc, Etc. For schools like HYPSM, they get applications to fill almost every square. If the square you fit into has a lot of other students in it, you have some competition. As was mentioned above, Montana, Wyoming, ND, etc are states whose squares would be less full… so less competition. You mention California and Atlantic region… both areas would have full squares. Smaller schools (W&L mentioned above) may need to seek out students from California as it is a more “regional” school. So, that’s where you MAY have an advantage. Not HYPSM.

12

It depends. No one from Nebraska got into Princeton this year.

13

@T26E4 I’m really sorry for this mix-up.

I was just told I was severely misinformed. These past few years Yale acceptance rates at our school is 1-2 per grade. However, this year there is one who got into MIT (hasn’t accepted yet b/c he doesn’t want his parents to pay tons of $), Rice, Northwestern, NYU, three studying abroad (Goldsmith - U of London, Hull in England, and Spain), and around 5 or 6 (I think - these are only those I have heard) going to UVA, and plenty going to fairly prestigious schools that I can’t remember off the top of my head. However, there are still tons going to a college in-state. I have heard less about previous years, but here are some I know:

Last years valedictorian went to Duke
One got into Yale, another Harvard, plus one went abroad to Norway (last year)
A friend’s brother is at Carnegie Mellon (sophomore, I believe)
Another friend’s sister at Duke, undergrad most likely
A girl who won a fairly prestigious debate tournament as a junior in LD Debate was accepted into MIT (6 yrs. ago)
I have heard that someone went to Princeton and another Stanford, but that hasn’t been explicitly said who or when.
I have been told a lot go to many very good schools, however this could have been another misinformed reply. These are the only ones I know for a fact.

We also win quite a few state championships in sports, and academic activities such as state essay contests and such.

My friend in California isn’t explicitly referred to as a feeder school, however I think that many of their graduates end up in Ivy Leagues, especially since tuition is pretty high.

@phoenixmomof2 The states I mentioned are ones often ambivalent in terms of geographic categorization. I believe they are more often considered Southern states than Mid-Atlantic, but not by much.

Just another extracurricular question: What if one does excels in multiple activities, while another does better in one activity to a greater degree (albeit minor) than the other? How would that be weighed?