<p>So, I am apparently the least informed person on this forum. I was wondering if geographical under-representation-such as a student being from Mississippi- constitutes a "hook." Could someone get back to me on that?</p>
<p>A “hook” typically refers to: recruited athletes, under-represented minorities, legacies, development (financial gifts) cases, and possibly celebrities (children of politicians, stars etc). </p>
<p>Being from Mississippi and applying to the University of Outer Siberia is a geographical hook in the sense of it being an oddity, but not a hook in that it would give you a disproportionate increase in your chances of being accepted (unless the folks at UOS had specifically made a point of wanting more applicants from the South). Personally I suspect geography may be a very small tipping point between two otherwise equal candidates - i.e., do we want another candidate from NYC or should we take this applicant from rural Mississippi instead.</p>
<p>Oh, okay. Thank you.</p>
<p>You are up against vastly less competition than applicants from the Northeast. It may not be a hook in the traditional sense of the word, but it’s certainly a “tip” factor. Top schools are looking for applicants that are diverse–that can be racial diversity, socioconomic diversity, geographic diversity, diversity of academic interests, etc.</p>
<p>Being from a state that sends few applicants to a college can be a strong tip factor but not a hook. What it does mean is that you have chance with lower stats than applicants from overrepresented states.</p>
<p>That said colleges don’t need many from Mississippi, so the tip quickly goes away if there are several quality applicants your year.</p>
<p>Contrary to conventional wisdom on CC, I’m not persuaded geography is even a “tip factor.” Colleges do like to boast about how many states are “represented” in their student bodies (or entering classes), but all they need is one per state to make that boast. So unless you’re the only applicant from your state—or one of, say, five or six at the most selective schools—I don’t think it will help you all that much. From the (admittedly somewhat limited) data I’ve seen, the admit rate at elite colleges and universities is about the same for applicants from “underrepresented” as from “overrepresented” states.</p>
<p>Consider applicants to Princeton, one of the few schools that (helpfully) posts information on the geographic distribution of its entering class. In the Class of 2013 admitted in 2009, there were 4 Mississippians. Sounds pretty “underrepresented,” right? So how many applied? Well, we don’t know exactly because Princeton doesn’t tell us. But the College Board tells us that 61 Missisippians in the HS Class of '09 sent SAT scores (either SAT I or SAT II or both) to Princeton (each unique student sending SAT I and/or SAT II score reports is counted once, regardless of how many scores reports they sent). Now these may not all represent completed applications; some people probably sent scores but then were admitted ED somewhere else before completing their applications, or simply changed their minds before completing the application. But since Princeton requires ALL applicants to sent SAT II scores even if they submit the ACT in lieu of the SAT I, we can say that everyone who did apply to Princeton should be included in the 61 who submitted SAT scores, and 61 is an upper bound on the number of completed applications. Of those 61, only 4 ended up enrolling at Princeton, a rate of 6.5%.</p>
<p>In contrast, New Jersey is a classic “overrepresented” state at Princeton; 185 New Jerseyans enrolled in the Class of 2013. But 3,468 New Jerseyans sent SAT scores to Princeton. Of those who submitted SAT scores, 5.3% enrolled—not so very different from Mississippi’s 6.5%. (There’s no reason to assume a higher percentage of non-completion by SAT-submitters from either state). </p>
<p>Still, a slight edge for Mississippians, right? But that’s probably just statistical noise. Neighboring Alabama sent 5 kids to Princeton’s Class of 2103 out of 118 SAT-submitters, a rate of 4.2% (lower than NJ’s rate). Louisiana sent 4 of 98, or 4.1%. Tennessee sent 10 of 231, or 4.3%. Arkansas sent 4 of 74, or 5.4%. These percentage figures are all within a narrow range of 4.1% to 6.5%, with the NJ rate right in the middle; state-by-state variations appear to be just statistical noise. Indeed, for this 5-state South Central region as a whole, the rate is 4.8%, or a slight 0.5% below the NJ rate.</p>
<p>Bottom line, there’s just no evidence I’ve seen to support the well-traveled myth that admit rates at selective schools are higher for kids from “underrepresented” states. Kids from the Northeast and their anxious parents like to think they’re operating under some special disadvantage due to geography. They see large numbers of kids, including many well-qualified kids, applying to Princeton and similar schools, and they see most of them rejected. But that’s because Princeton rejects a lot of people from everywhere, including very well qualified applicants, regardless of geography—including applicants from “underrepresented” states.</p>
<p>Now if you’re applying to a small LAC that currently has no one in its student body from your state (and most LACs count geographic representation in the entire student body, not in any particular entering class), then geography might be a “tip factor.” But at the most selective universities, probably not; at least not if you’re from a state with a population as large as Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, or Arkansas, because there will be at least several dozen applicants from your state from which they can choose to make their unofficial “quota” of at least one from every state. (All states except Montana are represented in Princeton’s class of 2013, but 7 states have only 1 representative, 2 states have 2, 3 states have 3, and 5 states have 4; to get that few, they don’t need to use a higher admit rate).</p>
<p>The big difference would be how many from NJ vs. how many from Mississipppi were hooked. Given that lots of legacies and recruited athletes would be from NJ and all staff kids would be, we have a lot of hooked candidates from NJ who have several times the chace as an unhooked candidate to get in. So the unhooked from NJ probably have under a 3% chance.</p>
<p>In Mississippi, good chance none of the candidates are hooked, giving them twice the chance as an unhooked kid from NJ.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure I’d agree with that. If bclintonk is correct, and out of the thousands of Mississippi students applying to college, only 61 applied to Princeton, it’s obviously not a school high on radar of the state’s high school seniors. I’d actually bet that most of those applicants are either kids of alums or who are being recruited by Princeton.</p>
<p>The internet has spread the ivy word to ambitious kids everywhere. I think you’d be hard pressed to find many P grads seeking careers in Mississipi however.</p>
<p>Thank you guys. Did the college board release the score ranges from the mississippi applicants? I am not worried about test scores, but I would like to see the average for an admitted student from mississippi.</p>
<p>I doubt that it is on the same level as hooks like legacy, URM, and 1st generation college student, but I have heard from multiple sources that it does help to a degree. It probably is a hook in that, if they have few students from your state, they might take an extra look at your application, which is supposedly what the goal of having hooks is.</p>
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<p>Not “many” but some. For many generations Princeton has been the Ivy of choice in some parts of the South. I’ll bet there are many generations of Southerners who sent their sons (mostly) to Princeton, with the expectation they’d come back and take over the family business interests. Heck that goes back at least as far as James Madison, a native Virginian who attended Princeton (then the College of New Jersey) only to return to Virginia to run the farm, practice law, and enter politics.</p>
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<p>Really, these places aren’t the end of the universe, and it’s not unfathomable that smart kids from Mississippi would have heard of / would aspire to Princeton. I wouldn’t have any reason to believe that those were merely / only alum kids or athletes. </p>
<p>I realize it’s not Princeton, but even 25 years ago at NU, we had kids from Mississippi and Wyoming and Idaho and South Dakota who had heard of “better” schools.</p>
<p>Geography can actually be a HUGE factor.</p>
<p>Read this book:</p>
<p>[The</a> Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College…](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0142003085?ie=UTF8&tag=thelightsonli-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0142003085]The”>http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0142003085?ie=UTF8&tag=thelightsonli-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0142003085)</p>
<p>A major theme is the search for geographic diversity.</p>
<p>bclintonk,
Can you kindly post the link to the collegeboard table that shows the # of requests for scores sent to schools? Thats very interesting.</p>
<p>^ jym626,
I wish it were as easy as a single table. The College Board issues a Total Group Report: College-Bound Seniors 2009, accompanied by separate state reports for every state. You need to download the state report (.pdf file) for the state you’re interested in, then scroll to the back of the report, second-to-last page, and there will be a table listing the 45 schools that received (one or more) SAT reports from the most students in that state. In NJ, for example, it shows Rutgers #1 with 29,246 New Jersey 2009 college-bound seniors sending SAT score reports to that school; Montclair State #2 (12,110); and so on. Surprisingly (to me, anyway), Princeton isn’t even the most popular Ivy among NJ students, at least in 2009. Cornell received SAT reports from 3,669 New Jerseyans, edging out Princeton with 3,468 and Penn with 3,137. Columbia (2,364) and Brown (2,009) were the only other Ivies to make the top 45 in New Jersey; no Yale, no Harvard.</p>
<p>You can find it all here:</p>
<p>[College-Bound</a> Seniors 2009 - SAT Total Group and State Reports](<a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/data-reports-research/sat/cb-seniors-2009]College-Bound”>SAT Suite of Assessments – Reports | College Board)</p>
<p>I think this is really useful raw data, especially on the most selective schools that require all applicants to submit SAT II scores. Lots could be done with it. I’ve begun to fiddle with it a bit. One preliminary conclusion: even at the super-elite level, college applications are far more local/regional than many people suspect. New Jerseyans apply to Princeton and Ivies in adjacent states (NY, PA) in very large numbers, but not so much to the New England Ivies. New Englanders apply to the New England Ivies in large numbers (though CT residents don’t apply so much to Harvard or MA residents so much to Yale) but by and large not to the Mid-Atlantic Ivies. Stanford draws extremely well in the West, Southwest, Northwest, Great Plains, and Industrial Midwest, but not so much the Southeast or Northeast. Duke and Vanderbilt dominate the South (except Texas which swings more southwestern and Florida which swings more northeastern) but, except for Duke’s strength in the DC area, are largely ignored in the rest of the country. Northwestern is very popular among Midwesterners but the University of Chicago less so (apart from Illinois), but neither of these schools draws strongly from anyplace outside their home region. I’m thinking about drawing some of this up in tabular form if I have time to do so.</p>
<p>Not a “hook” per se, but could be a tip factor in some circumstances at some schools.</p>
<p>So what about geographic diversity within a state? Like if a state has urban well-to-do areas, but you live in a rural under-represented part of a state… does that do anything for you?</p>
<p>thats a lot of data to digest, bclintonk. Maybe I’ll wait til they make it into a movie :)</p>
<p>^ I’ve distilled some of it into 3 new threads on the CC College Search board, one on most popular Ivies by state, one on most popular “elite” (US News top 50) colleges/universities by state, and one on most popular “super-elite” (US News top 25) colleges/universities by state. Check it out!</p>