<p>ihs76, we live in a semi-rural area of southern Oregon. Just anecdotally, the acceptance rate to top colleges, particularly in the NE, from our small, local public high school is pretty high. Now, it’s the only high school in the region that is getting outcomes like that, but the difference is that this is a kind of boutique small-town with disproportionately higher-income, better educated parents. The school itself, however, offers only 4 or 5 AP classes, doesn’t weight grades, doesn’t rank students. Virtually no students enter national level competitions – it’s just not in the culture here.</p>
<p>I think being from a small town in southern Oregon is a boost for these students. The students are well-prepared and they add geographic diversity to many campuses.</p>
<p>As to the question of whether kids from underrepresented states are “as qualifed” as students from NJ or similar places, I think that whole frame is a bit off. An attractive candidate for admission doesn’t have to be the <em>very</em> strongest in terms of the old metrics of grades/test scores/ECs, etc. They only have to sufficiently well prepared to be successful at that college. If colleges were only admitting the very best-of-the-best by those standard measures they’d end up with more homogenous campus cultures that many are not interested in having.</p>
<p>You don’t have to be accomplished on the highest order <em>before</em> you even arrive in order to be an excellent student. Admissions offices know this. They’re looking for what each student will bring to their college. Those things students bring are varied and subtle. Every year on CC you see many almost inexplicable rejections, as well as many whodda-thunk-it acceptances.</p>
<p>There’s no doubt in these states parents need to create the opportunities. CYT, EPGY, good summer programs of all sorts–RSI and TASP love these kids.</p>
<p>It’s exactly the type of communities that 'rentof2 describes that easily get kids into top colleges, but any parent in the know can create a great applicant anywhere.</p>
<p>It is the fact that these opportunities are not as readily available as they are in NJ that makes these states underrepresented.</p>
<p>hmom5: “It’s exactly the type of communities that 'rentof2 describes that easily get kids into top colleges, but any parent in the know can create a great applicant anywhere.”</p>
<p>This is true, in my experience. Only a few students from this area even apply to top colleges. Among those that are sufficiently qualified academically (grades/scores comparable to other admitted applicants), very few don’t get into at least one of their top choices among highly selective privates. I think that must be at least partially because they come from an underrepresented part of the country. Just roughly ball-parking, I’d say that rather than a 10% acceptance rate to highly selective schools, it’s probably something more like 30-40%. (Again, talking about kids with the grades/stats and ECs --such as they are available here… not much.)</p>
<p>We live in one of those flyover states and I have to agree about the culture of not attending top/oos schools. I know a last year senior who got admitted to MIT but chose to attend an instate private (on a scholarship of course).
The school that my oldest goes to is the top public school in the state. Out of last year graduating class of about 500+ roughly 60+ attended a special in school magnet program. Out of those kids several went to Ivies/other top schools. We do not have Naviance so I do not have the real info in front of me but I have heard from the GC that two went to Princeton, one to Stanford, one to Brown, there were some CalTech admissions - I do not remember exactly, but there were other top schools named there.
We are talking kids who matriculated there - I have no idea how many applied and how many were admitted but I also have a strong feeling that the admit rate from our state for some of the top schools for “very qualified applicants” is more than 10%, much more.
Therefore I can’t agree with the OP hypothesis that it is harder to get admitted to top schools from an underrepresented state. It is much harder though to become a “very qualified, competitve applicant” in a state like that.
Very nice page about matriculation at Princeton. Do other top colleges have similar?</p>
<p>this is such a fail. if you were in elementary school, the children would all write down not enough information. you dont know how many applied from nj or if even any1 from montana applied. More qualified students in nj anywayYour hypothesis is wrong. if you compare two students, exact stats with one from nj and one from montana, the montana kid will get in.</p>
<p>“if you compare two students, exact stats with one from nj and one from montana, the montana kid will get in”</p>
<p>Completely agree. My only point, which I make no claims to being mathematically rigorous, is that it’s much harder for a kid from MT to get the exact stats. NMSF last year for MT was 208 (vs >220 at many NE states) and there were only 2 from my son’s HS (class of 500+) that made that cutoff. So what’s it going to take for someone from that HS to get 2300+ on SAT? What’s it take for a kid from MT to win Siemens (no one even knows what that is), do research (pleeeease), attend fancy summer programs etc. etc. etc. One bright kid I know, not my son, who got a 33 on ACT with no studying pours concrete all summer. Will attend some podunk school if at all. There is no one at the school looking out for him and encouraging him to look beyond. Yes, it makes me angry that many of these bright kids here, and we do have them, are all OK doing whatever and no one is encouraging them to push themselves intellectually. The honors physics teacher, that everyone looks up to, is telling the kids that it’s waste of time and money to attend fancy schools.</p>
<p>So, the kids from MT who do get the same stats as the ones that attended magnet schools elsewhere, have already swum upstream for many years. That’s why there are so few that actually make it to the destination.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if I have a lot to add to what other posters have said, that if it was easier to get in from an underrepresented state, it wouldn’t be underrepresented. I think there is a pervasive feeling that kids from these states may not be less intelligent, but they’re less qualified, and I really don’t believe that that’s true. I don’t think that past accomplishment=qualification for succeeding at college if the opportunities weren’t there.</p>
<p>I guarantee that no one from my high school has heard of USAMO or RSI; I got a 231 on the PSATs and threw away the TASP application because I’d never heard of it (and may never have if not for CC). One of my best friends, second in the class (out of 400) and 2280 on the SAT, didn’t even realize he’d have to take subject tests for top schools until I was talking to him about it…April of junior year. We have no science-related clubs and only just formed a math team two years ago. We have six AP classes. I don’t know anyone besides for myself that actually studied for the SATs. We send our top students to an average state school. I’ve never, ever heard of anyone getting into HYPSM (or is that HPYSM now, haha); even admitting that you’re THINKING about applying to an Ivy smacks of incredible arrogance.</p>
<p>I dearly wish that I could have had the opportunities that some CC posters complain puts them at a “disadvantage” (not that I’m characterizing this particular thread in this way). If you don’t want your research opportunities, 20 AP classes, and guidance counselors and teachers who believe that you’re capable of getting into a top school…I’ll take 'em.</p>
<p>I think this notion of an “underrepresented state” advantage at HYPS-level schools is largely a myth. Sure, Princeton would like to boast that its incoming class includes students from all 50 states and dozens of foreign countries. But the reality is, they only need 1 per state to make that claim. In the class of 2013, they came extremely close: Montana is the only state without one. Seven states, including 3 of Montana’s 4 immediate neighbors, have exactly 1; two states have 2, three states have 3, six states have 4, and so on. My guess is Princeton probably accepted 1 or 2, possibly even 3 or 4 Montanans, and lost out on cross-admits. Odds are if they accept 2 they’ll get at least one since (if I recall correctly) their yield usually hovers right around 70%, but playing the odds with those small numbers, you’ll occasionally lose out. If they accepted 2, that represents an acceptance rate of 5% of an applicant pool of around 40 Montanans who sent SAT scores to Princeton (and it’s a good bet that of the 40 who sent scores, nearly that many applied; why else would you send the scores?). If they accepted 3, that’s 7.5% of the likely applciant pool, still below their national acceptance rate. So maybe they accepted 4? That still puts them right around their national acceptance rate at 10%.</p>
<p>In other words, a school like Princeton can achieve its geographic diversity objectives without significantly changing its acceptance rate for “underrepresented” states like Montana. And there’s just no reason, based on the available data, to assume the stats of Montana applicants in general, or those who are accepted, are lower than those of NJ applicants. Relatively few Montanans take the SAT, but those who do generally score well, and the top scorers score just as high as the top scorers in New Jersey. In all likelihood, the 40 or so Montanans who applied to Princeton were among the most highly qualified applicants in the state, just as likely to have top SAT scores by national standards, top HS grades, and top class ranks as the 3,468 New Jerseyans (or thereabouts, based on the number who submitted their SAT scores) who applied to Princeton in the same year. </p>
<p>At elite LACs it may be a different story. Most Northeastern LACs draw their applicant pool (and their student body) primarily from the Northeast. Some profess to like geographic diversity, too. A Williams or a Swarthmore probably gets far fewer applicants from Montana than does Princeton. At smaller schools, and those less well known outside the Northeast, there may well be an “underrepresented state” advantage.</p>
<p>^ On the other hand, I’d caution the OP not to make too much of the statistical data from one low-population “underrepresented” state. While Montana had nobody enroll at Princeton in 2009, neighboring Wyoming, with an even smaller population, had 2. This despite the fact that only 11 Wyoming kids sent SAT scores to Princeton in 2009. Since you can’t complete your application to Princeton without submitting SAT II scores (even if you send ACT scores and not SAT I scor4es as your primary test), we can infer that 11 represents that maximum applicant pool from Wyoming for 2009. Less than or equal to 11 applied, 2 enrolled. You do the math. That’s a pretty high acceptance rate. Averaged with Montana, it’s about average. Average all the so-called “underrepresented states” and I suspect it’s about average—not higher, not lower. The reason these states are “underrepresented” is that few people apply. Period. That doesn’t make it either harder or easier to gain admission; you’ve still got to have all the credentials the school is looking for, and even with them, you still face long odds.</p>
<p>The idea was not that there is an artificial boost to the acceptance rate (a South Dakota Quota) but that credentials are evaluated relative to the inferred quality of the environment. Apparently the elite schools are trying to filter out the “nurture” (exogenous) variables to access “nature” (endogenous) information about the applicants – Social Darwinism. Such recipes would lead, on average, to a more favorable all-things-equal judgement of Montanans than Manhattanites.</p>
<p>I grew up in Wyoming, attended school all over the west, got an MD from a California school and now reside in Montana. My son has a 2320 on the SAT’s (800 in math) and an gpa of 3.8 unweighted because most schools here don’t weight. So we’re familiar with the whole idea of being high-achievers in flyover country.</p>
<p>My perspective is that it’s harder to become a qualified applicant in some ways, but that it’s also easier to be a big fish in a little pond- so it’s a wash. I think the bigger reason why there aren’t many MT kids at Princeton (or any Ivy) is that they just don’t want to go. The prestige of an Ivy education lessens the further one gets from the Ivys, and to most people out here, it’s just not worth it. If one intends to live here, one would want to attend a school in the west.</p>
<p>Kids here seem to look to California as the educational mecca. THe physical and social climate is similar. We’re mostly a little laid back, like the sunshine and being out-of-doors. The east just doesn’t resonate. My son had Harvey Mudd, Caltech and Stanford on his list- but will probably go to the COlorado School of Mines on a scholarship because he likes it. For some kids the culture shock of LA is too much- never mind trying to live on the east coast. It’s just not on their radar screens. It seems to me that it’s usually the kids whose parents have Ivy degrees who even think about going back east.</p>
<p>“It seems to me that it’s usually the kids whose parents have Ivy degrees who even think about going back east.”</p>
<p>This makes some sense. The other day, my smart (4.0 unweighted, probably National Merit) daughter (who has visited 8 colleges, one of which was an Ivy) asked me what an Ivy was. Children aren’t born yearning for Ivy admission.</p>