<p>My counselor seems to think that a kid coming from a podunk California town will be more appealing to East Coast schools than any old kid from NYC, because schools want geographic diversity. But I think that the most selective schools receive enough applications from California that they would not give special attention to anyone just because of where they're from. Does anyone have any perspective on this? (Especially college students who came from podunk towns themselves...)</p>
<p>My Yale interviewer seemed to indicate that my geographic location + marked interest in subjects pertaining to the region (banjo, tobacco) would be a strong point.</p>
<p>Geographic diversity includes rural locations, but the rural student still has to be qualified. Ivys and other elite schools receive a lot of applications from California. An academically talented applicant from rural Central Valley, far NorCal, the Sierra Nevada or the SoCal desert just adds one more hook to his scorecard.</p>
<p>well im from ny....would that help me get in UCB than those of california residents, since almost 90 % of the california hs students apply to ucb.....so since im from ny, finally after like thousands of application, they will have ana applicant with a different geographic different, bringing the east coast culture to the west coast......NOT NO "IM EAST SIDE SON, IM BETTER THAN YOU WEST SIDERS SON"....just basic intellectually diversity and democractic and liberal diversity...not sure if cal is as liberal as ny is</p>
<p>But UCB is for CA residents, and out of state applicant will have a harder time being accepted.</p>
<p>true...how sad....my chance at the country's top 20 university so low, just because im from a different part of the country...........just very frustrating</p>
<p>According to the 2005-06</a> Campus Profile, only 785 (4%) of the total 18,077 UCSB undergraduates come from out of state (see page 4 of 8). I don't know how many are incoming freshman or are from NY state.</p>
<p>BestMiler 1</p>
<p>If you have good GPA, decent SAT scores and above average ECs, you really do stand a chance at UCB. Try not be frustrating in this season when you probably already suffer from post application anxiety. </p>
<p>Wish you the best of luck.</p>
<p>I think geographic diversity is pretty important.
Well, that is just my opinion.</p>
<p>What is UCB by the way?</p>
<p>According to Berkeley's Common Data Sets, around 10% of incoming freshman are from OOS, and around 11% of the entire undergrad population is from OOS. I'm not sure why this conflicts with their Campus Profile gsp-sv posted.</p>
<p>does anyone know how many apply to ucb from ny and get in?.....becuase im like the only one from my school that applied to ucb, which is a surprise...because my hs is number two in the state for public schools and most kids like me, who is in the IB Program apply to HYPM..i really wanna go there, my two cousins got in...one from ny and one from ca</p>
<p>Depending on your location, the acceptance rate for your area could be more than double the summary acceptance rate posted by HYP. Depending on location they may cut you some slack on stats.</p>
<p>i think im going to commite suicide,,,,if on the evening of march 30 it says:
Dear So and So
Since this year there was very high competitive pool of applicant therefore we are unable to offer you admission at University of California Berkeley.
Sincerlely
Dean of Admission
I am going to jump out of my roof...i lOVE BERKELEY that much...my two cousins has influenced me sooo MUCH..and they both went there</p>
<p>BestMiler1, you honestly think attending UC Berkeley is more important than living? Even if you were joking, it's really not a lighthearted thing to say. Grow up.</p>
<p>
[quote]
since almost 90 % of the california hs students apply to ucb.
[/quote]
I'm not sure how accurate that is. About 90% of the student body are California residents, though. I think so, anyway.</p>
<p>BestMiller1, no school's denying you acceptance is worth your life. No school.</p>
<p>I recently moved from an area in the midwest where relatively few students apply to northeast colleges. Or at least to my alma mater, anyway.</p>
<p>I participated in some alumni activities while I was there, and since I have college-application age kids myself I spoke with our local alumni rep about admissions.</p>
<p>Turns out the percentage of applicants accepted by my alma mater from this little podunk area was almost exactly the same as its average acceptance rate country-wide.</p>
<p>In her "A is for admissions" book, I recall Michelle Hernandez saying something that would reinforce what I experienced. She said they do care about geographic diversity, but somehow by "an invisible hand" it usually takes care of itself without unduly altering admissions standards. Or something to that effect, I recall.</p>
<p>I think geographic diversity boils down to states (or at least that's my impression so far). I'm from Georgia along with about 20 others in the freshman class, but 18 of them are from Atlanta, then there's me from a pretty rural area of Middle Georgia, and I think there's one or two from Savannah. Perhaps it's an off year, but it seems like geographic diversity is really only that one number in the viewbook: "our students hail from all fifty states," with few other considerations.</p>
<p>monydad, I think you have the right of it. One of the Duke admissions officers said that they were "surprised and delighted to find" that there were 6 people from Wyoming admitted last year.</p>
<p>To the OP:</p>
<p>Basically your counselor is correct, but you have to qualify that: it depends on whether the institution is public or private, & on the selectivity of the institution. Public U's have certain admissions priorities they are compelled to meet --- with stated preference given to in-States, so clearly a high-level public U in a populous State will admit a small percentage of OOS's & Internat'ls (with often a minimum but flexible "quota" of slots saved for each).</p>
<p>Private U's can set their own rules. The extremely popular & most selective schools receive top-flight applications from around the world; therefore, their geographic representation tends to be very well distributed. Any private U in the E.Coast that falls in that category and which <em>also</em> has received a lopsided volume of apps from E.Coast in the past may favor a W.Coast applicant whose qualifications are equal to an Easterner also being reviewed. Again, however, there's a qualification to that: it depends on the reputation of the W.Coast school. A h .school whose profile is not well known by the E.Coast institution may not have any "edge" over a student from a well-respected high-school in the East which has traditionally sent many grads to those schools. Many of my D's equals did not get admitted to the same schools she applied to, & I'm convinced that the (different) perceived quality of their h. schools, vs. her school, had much to do with those results.</p>
<p>Public U's which have not been historically very selective, & which have room in their freshman class, may be interested in admitting more students who have very strong records,which in some cases may favor OOS's with better records than the average in-Stater.</p>
<p>Thank you, epiphany, for the detailed reply.</p>
<p>Do you mean, then, that the fact that I go to an, as I said, sort of "podunk," semirural school, will reflect poorly on me? Will colleges think that I did not have to work as hard to earn my high GPA as a student from a more competetive HS? I think what my counselor meant was that it will be impressive that I've been able to thrive academically despite going to school in a less intellectually stimulating environment, since I do have very high AP scores and SATs.</p>