<p>My guidance counselor told me that students coming from regions of states which have few Ivy league applicants have a better chance of getting into these schools. To what extent is this true? Do admissions officers try to admit a specific range of people from different regions of states?</p>
<p>If you google “geographic diversity in college admissions”, you will find many people that concur with your guidance counselor. Here are just a few links to read:</p>
<p>[Attending</a> College in a Different Time Zone - CBS MoneyWatch.com](<a href=“MoneyWatch: Financial news, world finance and market news, your money, product recalls updated daily - CBS News”>MoneyWatch: Financial news, world finance and market news, your money, product recalls updated daily - CBS News)
[a</a> diverse definition of diversity in college admissions - eCampusTours](<a href=“http://www.ecampustours.com/collegeplanning/applyingforcollege/definitionofdiversity]a”>http://www.ecampustours.com/collegeplanning/applyingforcollege/definitionofdiversity)
<a href=“https://goacta.org/publications/downloads/DiversityinCollegeAdmissions.pdf[/url]”>https://goacta.org/publications/downloads/DiversityinCollegeAdmissions.pdf</a>
[Playing</a> the Admission Card | Recent The Ivy Coach Newsletters](<a href=“http://www.theivycoach.com/the-ivy-coach-newsletter-about-college-admissions/playing-the-admission-card.html]Playing”>http://www.theivycoach.com/the-ivy-coach-newsletter-about-college-admissions/playing-the-admission-card.html)</p>
<p>There is no doubt that an applicant applying from North Dakota will have increased chances over an applicant from New York. It doesn’t count as an EC (obviously) and is technically not a hook, but it diversifies the student body; a goal all admissions officers seeks to attain.</p>
<p>Well, I come from an area of upstate New York where few graduates go to top colleges. Upstate as a whole is frequently underrepresented when compared to Long Island, NYC, and Westchester downstate. Do admissions officers look at states as a whole or do they differentiate between different parts of states?</p>
<p>I suspect that being from upstate NY does nothing to improve your admissions chances. All the national universities like to advertise that students from all 50 states attend which is very helpful for qualified candidates from Wyoming.</p>
<p>However, a place like Yale is not gonna take an idiot just cos they come from Wyoming or (odd place here…).</p>
<p>It definitely increases your chances (only very slightly) if you apply from a state that has very few applicants. Yale takes pride in saying that it’s freshman undergraduates account for all 50 states.</p>
<p>Like idiosyncr3y said: applicants from these regions may get an extra review, but they aren’t gonna shoe horn in someone who’s not qualified. The fact this there may only be 1-2 stellar applicants from Wyoming but 50 from Arizona. Gonna be hard to forget the Wyoming folks during the discussion round, see?</p>
<p>I’m sure every state has students who are qualified to attend Yale. That doesn’t mean that every state would have applicants accepted if admissions were geography-blind.</p>
<p>You know how they say that when you apply, you aren’t necessarily competing against everyone in the pool, just everyone in your racial/socioecomic group? Does the same apply for geography? </p>
<p>Or better yet, let’s say two qualified students had exactly the same stats/level of essays and recs and Y only had one spot for a kid like this. Rank these factors, with #1 being the most important in terms choosing which kid to take.</p>
<ol>
<li>What state/region they’re from</li>
<li>Their socioeconomic background (income, single-parent?)</li>
<li>Ethnicity/Race</li>
<li>Which high school they attended</li>
</ol>
<p>I know, it’s a crazy hypothetical, I just want to know which of the “uncontrollable” factors is most influential.</p>
<p>That’s not exactly true; they don’t say, we have 2 spaces for white, 60 - 80k income kids from George Washington school Nevada…</p>
<p>You regional adcom will select <em>some</em> people from his/her region. If it is a good year then he/she will select more, if not less… Of course if it is a bad year, or you come from an underrepresented region you may get lucky and get through that round just cos the adcom thinks he/she may as well take a couple of students through. But you then need to get through the GENERAL round, and in this you are competing against everyone else who got to the second round.</p>
<p>The long and the short of it; forget everyone else and just try be good yourself. You will not get in unless you are good enough and lucky (They always say that they could fill their class twice over without losing quality…)</p>
<p>So none of those factors really matters…</p>
<p>I wish i was a cowboy from the midwest with 2400, 4.0, and tons of horseriding EC’s</p>
<p>Much of this geographic diversity stuff is folklore. A place like Yale attracts really talented kids from all over the country, and the world.</p>
<p>In fact, the high schools in the Northeast have an advantage in placing their students at Yale because they have much better established relationships with Yale adcoms. Not to mention that kids and parents from the Northeast are much more ‘savvy’ in playing the admissions game.</p>
<p>My D personally knows a brilliant kid, 2400/4.0 with all 5’s on lots of APs and 800’s on subject tests who maxed the ACT as well, who was rejected by Yale, <em>and</em> was from an ‘underrepresented’ state. She knows many kids from overrepresented states who are at Yale who are far less impressive than this kid.</p>
<p>My son is very focused on Yale. Im not going to list all of his scores and achievements. But he wouldln’t be applying if he wasn’t qualified in terms of courses, scores and EC. We live in Westchester County in NY. Westchester is very well represented in all of the top schools in the country. However NO ONE from our town’s public HS has ever been accepted to Yale. </p>
<p>Is this a bad sign? Or can he try to use it to his advantage to further distinguish himself and talk to admissions about wanting to be able to represent his hometown at Yale.</p>
<p>Thoughts?</p>
<p>^ Hard to believe that about your son’s H.S. As you are aware, Yale does not “need” any more representation from Westchester County, NY so I see no advantage there. I would be curious on his guidance office’s take on why they feel they have no success with Yale. I do believe that there can be an institutional bias against a school because of poor yield in prior years.</p>
<p>See: [What</a> Yale Looks For | Yale College Admissions](<a href=“http://admissions.yale.edu/what-yale-looks-for]What”>What Yale Looks For | Yale College Undergraduate Admissions)</p>
<p>While it’s not a bad sign, I don’t think it will help your son to talk to admissions about wanting to be able to represent his hometown at Yale. What matters most to Yale, and any selective college, is a student’s accomplishments and what they perceive to be his or her future potential.</p>
<p>Historically speaking, our town was more “blue collar” and they just didn’t have any kids applying to H,Y or P. However the demographics have changed over the past 15-20 years. The entire HS only has about 430 kids so it is very small for a public HS. We have had kids get into Columbia, Brown, Penn, alot to Cornell and most of the selective LAC like Vassar, Williams, Haverford etc. Just something about those 3. I know Yale doenst need any one from Westchester. But Westchester is much more than Scarsdale and Chappaqua. We are going to go for it and if it is not meant to be then I am confident that he is going to be accepted into a fabulous college and get a great education.</p>
<p>Completely anecdotal, but I have contacts in several Northeastern LACS who say that “on” the record, being from an under-represented state doesn’t help. However, “off” the record, they say that it does. </p>
<p>There’s an interesting tool online that shows where freshmen are coming from at various schools over time: [Where</a> Does Your Freshman Class Come From? - Facts & Figures - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“http://chronicle.com/article/Interactive-Freshman-Class/129547/#id=195030]Where”>http://chronicle.com/article/Interactive-Freshman-Class/129547/#id=195030)</p>