What role does geographic diversity play in admissions? Is it solely based on state or is it based on region? For example, would an applicant from upstate new york be at a disadvantage because of the amount of quality students from nyc area?
Geographic diversity certainly is part of Yale’s holistic assessment process. Certain states have always had much higher representation than others, but there is obviously a correlation to state population (New York and California have by far the greatest numbers of entering students). See this link to entering freshmen by state https://oir.yale.edu/sites/default/files/w026_fresh_bystate.pdf. As a practical matter, the admissions office divides the country into regions, so initially applicants are likely to be compared against others in their region. I would think NYC is in a separate region from say Buffalo, but I don’t know that for a fact. I would also hazard a guess that pure geographic considerations carry far less weight than other demographic considerations (URM, first generation, low income).
What do you mean by “upstate New York,” exactly? I don’t think being from Albany will help you much, but being from a small town might.
Unfortunately, NY state is tough. In the end, when the college can point to various states students come from, they’re not distinguishing upstate from NYC or the surrounding highly competitive area. There can be a huge pool of competitive applicants from that NYC corner- and sometimes, much more offered in those high schools, higher rigor, more experiences, students more aggressively pursuing more, etc. Some one little hs “upstate” may or may not present the same.
Geo diversity doesn’t really offer a free pass.