<p>Of course Penn is private therefore is not really obligated to give any admissions/fin aid benefit to instate students, but while looking at a admissions chart the vast majority of students come from PA. Is this just because there are more applicants from PA or does Penn favor students from PA?</p>
<p>In my opinion it is simply because PA’ns choose to apply to Penn more often and so more of them are accepted. Most schools have this regional attraction, just look at Stanford (that is nationally attractive, but is 40% CA!) or University of Chicago (more regionally attractive, and 30% midwest)</p>
<p>I don’t know where you saw that, but either you misread it, or it’s wrong. Only 16.7% of the Class of 2015 is from Pennsylvania, and that’s typical for every entering class:</p>
<p>[Penn</a> Admissions: Incoming Class Profile](<a href=“http://www.admissions.upenn.edu/profile/]Penn”>http://www.admissions.upenn.edu/profile/)</p>
<p>Are you sure you weren’t looking at data for Penn State? ;)</p>
<p>45 Percenter,
Sorry, I meant to say that there are more Pennsylvanians on a relative basis.</p>
<p>Well, given that Penn is located in PA, and that PA is the 6th most populous state in the country with almost 13 million residents, it’s not surprising that more Penn students come from PA than from any other state. But PA residents still only make up less than 17% of the student body.</p>
<p>As PAGRok pointed out, it’s not unusual for top private schools in populous states or regions to have a significant number of their students come from those states or regions. In addition to Stanford and Chicago as cited by PAGRok, other examples of this would be Duke (more undergrads from NC than from any other state) and Columbia (more undergrads from NY than from any other state), and even Harvard (14% of undergrads from MA, which has a population of only 6.5 million).</p>
<p>I could be wrong, but being in-state could harm your chances of getting into Penn. Probably only a marginal amount though. Every top-school wants to boast about its wonderful geographic diversity when it comes to its students, so having more students from PA/New England isn’t something to brag about but having students from like ND, SD, Wyoming, etc. would be something to brag about. Just my two cents though.</p>