<p>I have seen quantification for the preference (in terms of SAT scores) in admissions based on race, recruited athlete, and legacy status, but have never seen an attempt to quantify the value of geographic diversity in admissions. Does anyone know of any attempt to quantify the magnitude of preference based on geographic diversity. I am assuming this would only be measurable to private schools since state school shave fairly explicit and sometimes large preferences for instate students. Then again maybe within the population of out of state students, state schools also have a preference for regional diversity that is measurable.</p>
<p>I'm sure this is not the kind of quantification you had in mind -</p>
<p>But this summer my D and I visited 3 well-known LACs in the northeast. During 2 of the 3 information sessions we attended, we heard "if you are from North Dakota, move to the front of the line".</p>
<p>D remarked that it almost makes her move across the border to North Dakota. </p>
<p>Almost.</p>
<p>Anecdotal but helps a bit. I am having an argument with someone who claims that geographic diversity can be worth as much as a 100 points per section on the SATS (or 200 on the 1600 scale). I find that very surprising and was wondering if anyone else had heard the same thing.</p>
<p>Excellent question, one that I researched quite a bit last year, when considering a job-related move from an allegedly 'overrepresented' geographic location to an allegedly 'underrepresented' one. I was not able to find any quantitative data on this topic, just lots of anecdotal comments like "Its much easier to get into Harvard from Iowa than from New York". So I did a bit of my own research and came to the conclusion that at least at the superselective schools, geographic advantages are greatly overstated. </p>
<p>I think for PR purposes a college wants to be able to say that their entering class includes students from all 50 states and xx countries (where xx is a large number). As long as Harvard has one student from Iowa that matriculates, it has no further 'PR' incentive to favor more applicants from Iowa. But a smaller liberal arts college might have a hard time reaching the "all 50 states" point, so perhaps the applicant from Iowa might have a significant advantage when applying to, say, Vassar.</p>
<p>I cannot quantify either. I can only guess and give my personal opinion. I think that your friend is correct for some schools, but not for others. For example, if you come from New York City, Oberlin is not going to give you 200 points. There are plenty of northeastern students who are interested in Oberlin and it has enough name recognition in New York. Then another good school like Hendrix does not have the same name recognition and I think that coming from NYC will help at Hendrix. JMO.</p>
<p>Vicariousparent,</p>
<p>That was my guess and it would explain the fact that there are anecdotal cases where large preferences appear to have been granted, but that when measured as a whole these preferences might appear to be small.</p>
<p>Certainly from my state (also Minnesota), there are enough applicants to all the nationally famous colleges that I would not expect the tip to be large at all. Maybe it helps a tiny bit at the margin in competition with "similar" applicants from New York or California, but the nationally famous colleges get hundreds of applicants from Minnesota, and only accept dozens or fewer in most cases. </p>
<p>I did once have the impression, from statements made several years ago at various public information sessions in town, that at a typical highly selective college on the coasts the base acceptance rate of Minnesotans might be about double that of all applicants, but that could be by self-selection of applicants in Minnesota (fewer speculative applications, more well prepared applications) rather than by preference in the admission committee.</p>
<p>tokenadult, Don't you think that the applicant from MN will get the tip to Gettysburg College or Connecticut College than the student from PA?</p>
<p>In general I think what they say at info sessions needs to be taken with a grain of salt. After all, one of the goals of an info session is to increase the total number of students applying to the college.</p>
<p>Bear in mind that colleges divide up the country into geographical regions when assigning regional reps who do the initial reading of applications and present the more qualified applicants to the admissions committees. I suspect that the regions are divided up to represent approx equal numbers of applications, and I can't imagine that the different reps have greatly varying success rates for getting students from their own region admitted.</p>
<p>Here's a chart to ponder. Go here Education</a> News - Education Life - The New York Times, scroll down to "Graphic: Geography" and open the chart. </p>
<p>It shows that, for example, the acceptance rate at the University of Pennsylvania is 18% for New York and 67% for North Dakota.</p>
<p>I once heard an admissions officer at an Ivy say that geographic diversity is important, is a hook -- but the student must bring legitimate diversity. A kid who moved a year ago from New Jersey to Montana doesn't count.</p>
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Don't you think that the applicant from MN will get the tip to Gettysburg College or Connecticut College than the student from PA?
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<p>That may be. Correspondingly, I'd expect applicants from the northeast to fare well at Carleton, Macalester, and St. Olaf.</p>
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Bear in mind that colleges divide up the country into geographical regions when assigning regional reps who do the initial reading of applications and present the more qualified applicants to the admissions committees.
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<p>MIT is one college that does NOT do that. MIT admission officers don't read or screen regionally at all.</p>
<p>Curious, 300 SAT points is beyond ridiculous.</p>
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Correspondingly, I'd expect applicants from the northeast to fare well at Carleton, Macalester, and St. Olaf.
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<p>I agree with you. I probably could not find 5 people out 100 random seniors in my area who know something about those schools, but I could always be wrong. Applying to any of them is even a much different story. I don't know of anyone from our high school who has applied to any one of those 3 schools.</p>
<p>A couple of years ago, my D was looking at some top-50 LACs in the northeast. At two different schools, when she was asked where she was from, the admissions officers apparently just listened to the first syllable and thought she said "Jersey" and gave a ho-hum response. Then D clarified that she had said "Germany" and they both seemed much more interested.</p>
<p>I think there is <em>maybe</em> just a little bit of a boost, but I think that it might be just a small tip to one out of several roughly equally qualified candidates an adcom might be considering. I really don't buy the suggestion that geographic diversity is worth so many points on the SAT.</p>
<p>To know for sure if a school promotes geographic diversity, google the school's Common Data Set and look at section C7, "Geographical residence" and "State residency." If "Not Considered" is not checked for either, where you live can play a role.</p>
<p>I had a thought on the issue of ad coms giving large preferences for students from states that rarely send students to the school. If the school routinely draws students from say 30 states, that means that students from all of the remaining 20 states must effectively compete for the preference for underrepresented states. I would think that this would keep the magnitude of the geographic diversity preference from getting too large. After all why should a school in say Maine offer a 300 point advantage to a student from North Dakota if a 150 point advantage would capture a student from say Louisiana. Viewed as a market for geographic diversity, it ought to be the case that colleges and universities can "buy" geographic diversity pretty cheaply in terms of the magnitude of the preference necessary to attract at least some students from all regions. This seems more true of geographic diversity, than other kinds of diversity, because, as mentioned earlier, the bragging rights are conferred to the college by having as little as one student from each state.</p>
<p>My infamous brush with geographic diversity!</p>
<p>There are a few things to think about when looking at numbers of admits from underrepresented states. I will use my own state as an example. In WI, 85% of students who attend a 4 year school directly out of high school attend either a state school in WI or MN (tuition reciprocity). Another 7% attend instate privates. That leaves about 8% who attend to both public and privates outside of the state. My experience is that most student who are not interested in attending out of the state don't bother applying. </p>
<p>So you have about 8% of students in our state each year applying to big and small schools all over the country. Most of the small schools are not well known in our state, even the highly ranked ones. Thus, the students who apply are students who have knowledge of the schools and took the time to find out about them. They don't apply to a laundry list of highly ranked schools because it is not seen as so much of a status symbol. In fact, a lot of folks think it is silly to go out of state when we have fine schools here at a reasonable cost.</p>
<p>My point is that students who apply from many underrepresented states may have higher admit rates because they have shown "the love". They are not tended to be seen by admission representatives as trophy hunters. It is a little easier to stand out when you are the only one from your high school applying. That being said, my highly qualified son was waitlisted at a top LAC a few years ago. I was a bit surprised because there can't be that many students from the state that apply there. He was highly interested in the school but still didn't quite make it. On the other hand, at another highly rated small university he was flown out to interview for a top scholarship. I was suprised by this but looking at their stats, they have very few students from our state, so maybe it was tip there.</p>