Strong Regional Bias in Admissions

Applying to College
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<p>Hi! This is my first post. I have two questions.</p>

<p>Background: My kid is a very strong applicant from a southeastern state. He was accepted to Wash U., Chicago, Reed, Pomona, William & Mary, Duke, Vanderbilt, and Emory. Duke, Vanderbilt and Wash U. classified his application among the very best they received this year, and each of them paid for a recruiting trip for him to visit campus. One of them offered him a full tuition scholarship based on academic merit. I am therefore very objectively sure that he is a strong applicant.</p>

<p>Now for the northeast -- he was flatly rejected by Yale, and waitlisted by Harvard, Princeton, Middlebury, Amherst, and Swarthmore. Other talented kids in his large and academically aggressive school were treated similarly. The data are clear: this kid was accepted and celebrated everywhere he applied, except for the northeast, where he was uniformly rejected.</p>

<p>Now part of me just wants to scream, "Damn Yankees!", but after counting to 10, I think a better response would be to ask a couple of questions,</p>

<p>First, how important are immutable demographics like race, region, and gender in college admission? The portfolio of emails that we just had our noses rubbed in leads us to believe that regionalism is far more important than we had suspected. Any comments?</p>

<p>Second, after cruising a few elite college web sites, I noticed that virtually all of them accept roughly 15% of their applicants from in-state, which suggests that you should indeed concentrate your efforts close to home. Is this well and widely known?</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

2

<p>Schools like Harvard, Yale, Princeton are much harder to get into than Emory, U. Chicago, etc. The only one that surprises me is Middlebury. Anyways, its not like you were applying to Northeastern schools like Lehigh and Boston College. HYP are ultra-selective, I doubt its a regional bias -- if anything it would help being from an underrepresented state.</p>

<p>Duke accepts alot of in-state residents, but most don't have a preference (ie. Georgetown, etc.).</p>

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<p>My guess is there are a lot of kids from the Northeast that apply to schools in the NorthEast.</p>

4

<p>my alma mater publishes admissions data for various regions and, although not perfect (we dont know how strong each applicant group is or how much athletes may impact the data), it does dispel the thought that there is a strong, universal bias at northeastern schools.</p>

<p>a ranking of geographic areas at bucknell by acceptance rate:</p>

<p>the south (highest acceptance rate)
delmarva
new york
west
north central
new england
pennsylvania
new jersey (lowest)</p>

<p>...for a school working to improve its yield, this is an interesting ranking as the three areas with the lowest acceptance rates also have the highest yields.</p>

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<p>SoutheastDad,
I must agree with some of what TheOC89 has said. The schools where your son was waitlisted (plus Yale) have some of the lowest acceptance rates in the country. Kudos to him for even being offered a place on their waitlists. He must have been a very strong applicant. My guess is that geography may have even helped him just a little bit to achieve waitlist status. I have always heard that it is best to apply outside of your region to maximize your chances of acceptance at highly selective schools. All this being said, he has some fabulous acceptances and a difficult choice to make. Congratulations to him!</p>

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<p>If there's any regional bias at the schools you mention, it would have helped your kid--the elite northeast schools want a geographically diverse student body and the south is harder for them to recruit from than the northeast, mid atlantic, or west coast. </p>

<p>Basically what it comes down to is, like the other posters have said, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Amherst, and Swarthmore are all significantly more competitive than any of the other schools other than Duke. Amherst, Swarthmore, Middlebury, and Duke are all similarly competitive enough that your kid getting into Duke (rather than, say, Middlebury) was almost certainly just chance--not any regional bias. In fact, my wager would be that if any regional bias was at work, it helped your kid get into Duke; according to the other schools they got into (including early write at Wash-U), their acceptance at Duke is more surprising than their rejection at HYP, Swarthmore, Amherst, or Middlebury.</p>

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<p>I agree with TheOC; the named northeastern schools are generally harder for anyone to get into.</p>

<p>One brief example, using one narrow datum, average of 25th to 75th %ile SAT scores of entering freshmen:</p>

<p>Yale 2225 (from <a href="http://www.yale.edu/oir/cds.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.yale.edu/oir/cds.pdf&lt;/a&gt;)
Vanderbilt 2075 (from <a href="https://virg.vanderbilt.edu/virgweb/CDSC.aspx?year=2007%5B/url%5D"&gt;https://virg.vanderbilt.edu/virgweb/CDSC.aspx?year=2007&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p>

<p>It's tedious, but various similar comparisons can be calculated using schools' Common Data Sets, or check the corresponding data in available publications to paint an overall picture.</p>

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<p>HYP are of course hardest to get into -- but they also DO have their preferences -- which is why little old Exeter sends as many kids to Harvard as does the entire middle-western part of the United States ;)</p>

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<p>What's up with 13 applications...........that in itself is questionable. Probably your "kid" has great stats, no question there, but hello? HYP..........that's all they deal with. With 13 applications out, how does anyone know where this "kid" really wants to go. It's more than stats and numbers.</p>

<p>Peace.</p>

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<p>On the 13 applications ... since he was applying to highly selective schools, we wanted to minimize the chance that he would be rejected by all of them, and maximize the chance that he would win some kind of merit award. Hence the large number of applications. I think our strategy was correct, since in the end he did win a very attractive award.</p>

<p>I disagree with the comments so far rejecting the regional bias hypothesis. If the kid was merely accepted at the less competitive southern schools I might understand, but his application was ranked in the top 1-2% of applications received. This was a top application. Furthermore, the correlation between geography and acceptence was 100% -- he was accepted at ALL the southern and midwestern and western schools, and rejected at ALL the northeastern schools.</p>

<p>That is to say, although this is just one case, the data are compelling.</p>

<p>What I'd really like to see is some kind of breakdown of the regional distribution of applications vs. admissions. That way you could calulate an acceptance rate by region and maybe plan a more targeted strategy.</p>

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<p>Keep in mind that the population density in the northeast is much higher than in the southeast - there are not only many more kids there are many more highly qualified kids like your son.
The great majority of all college freshmen go to school within 100 miles of home - that is a lot of northeast kids going to northeast schools.
I think your son did rather well coming from the southeast.</p>

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<p>I agree with abl. </p>

<p>The adcoms are trying to assemble a diverse student body. Applicants from Hawaii, Idaho, New Mexico, Alabama, etc. will get the benefit of the doubt when tied with <em>yet another</em> of thousands of applicant each from Connecticut, Massachussets, New York or New Jersey.</p>

<p>Your son actually benefitted from not being from the one of the northern colonies. Had his application had one of those northeastern state return addresses, he likely would not have been waitlisted, but rejected, along with the other 91% of applicants.</p>

<p>It is only a coincidence that, setting aside Stanford (go Robber Barons!) & Caltech, the eight or ten most selective schools in the country are located north of the Mason Dixon, within 100 miles of the Atlantic coast.</p>

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<p>If OP's S had applied to Cal Tech and Stanford, we might have better information with which to support regional bias in the northeast. As to those who say southeast helps with schools seeking diversity I disagree. Florida has many students apply to top schools. What helps is a really rare zip code, such as one in Alaska or rural Oklahoma. Hilton Head, SC or Tampa, Florida will get you nowhere, as far as adding to a school's diverse geographic pool.<br>
OP is right to complain when S was at the top of two very selective schools (Duke and WUSTL). He was not a regular admit, but one they wanted to recruit because even those adcoms thought he would be accepted at a Harvard or Brown. My S was an early write at Duke two years ago and was flown up to "Duke Up Close" on Duke's dime. He reported that everyone there other than him had been accepted to many Ivies, including Harvard and Yale. He had been acccepted to Stanford and had not applied to Ivies. He ended up at Stanford and most of the kids he stayed in touch with also went elsewhere (Yale and Princeton are two that I remember). This supports the claim that OP's S is viewed by Duke as being of the caliber to be accepted at HYP. Regional bias? Maybe!</p>

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<p>Just reread and saw OP's S had been accepted to Pomona. I think there is regional bias as far as Swarthmore and Middlebury are concerned. Pomona is just as selective as those two, but being in California probably was not suffering from a NE centric viewpoint.</p>

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<p>Here is the data: the only anomolies are Pomona in vs. Middlebury out. Looks like a very predictable result.</p>

<p>School, % admitted 2007</p>

<p>Harvard 9
Yale 9<br>
Princeton 10<br>
Pomona 18<br>
Amherst 19<br>
Swarthm 19</p>

<p>Wash U 21<br>
Duke 22<br>
Middlebu 22<br>
Wilm & Mary 32<br>
Vandy 34<br>
Emory 32<br>
Chicago 38<br>
Reed nr </p>

<p>My congratulations to the young man and his advisors for hitting the sweet spot with the applications and getting a nice merit award.</p>

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<p>This may not convince Southeast Dad, but my friends from the NorthEast, including NYC, Baltimore and Boston ALL think it's an advantage to be from anywhere but their region. The competition is great (ex. NMSF cut-off higher), there are more applicants, and the top-tier schools tend to be bunched in their area, so any geographical preference goes against them.</p>

<p>All I know coming from Missouri, is that I have seen a number of stellar (2350-2400 SATS, NMSF, 4.6 GPA, outstanding ECs) students not get into HYP, Stanford, et al. It's just that difficult and I seriously doubt there's an anti-southern (or anti-midwestern) bias in the process.</p>

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<p>Curious77 wrote,</p>

<p>"My S was an early write at Duke two years ago and was flown up to "Duke Up Close" on Duke's dime ... This supports the claim that OP's S is viewed by Duke as being of the caliber to be accepted at HYP."</p>

<p>Yes, Duke did exactly that for this kid. Furthermore, S was similarly ranked by both Wash U. and Vandy, both of which flew him in for a couple of days. I think that's a pretty strong application.</p>

<p>But apparently not in the northeast.</p>

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<p>Some people receive early writes at Harvard and Princeton but denied by Duke and Columbia. Just because your son was at the top at one school doesn't mean he was viewed the same by another. There are only rare cases of consistency where a particular student is deemed tops everywhere. Coming from the South, your son was, in fact, at an advantage (even if slight) when it comes to NE colleges. Just think about it. Would schools like Harvard rather have a homogeneous student body made up of kids from the NE or a mix of kids from different regions?</p>

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<p>SEDAd:</p>

<p>applying to Pomona from the SE is a bonus, not a bias. :)</p>

<p>Like all top private colleges, they too, like geographic diversity so it's much more difficult for a California resident to be accepted at Pomona.</p>

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<p>SoutheastDad... is there something about the acceptance % data I posted that is inconsistent with your son's results?</p>