Is Kansas an underrepresented state?
<p>For Ivies and the like in the Northeast? It is compared to, say, New Jersey.</p>
<p>I believe so.</p>
<p>oh yeah, try Arkansas</p>
<p>Is Maryland underrepresented at schools such as Arizona and Colorado?</p>
<p>Not sure if you mean New Jersey is under-represented, Hanna. But my S (at an Ivy) has many Jersey classmates, in fact more so than other states except Cali and Mass and NY. Who would have thought unappealing,sleepy Jersey send so many students to Ivy.</p>
<p>No, I meant that NJ is over-represented. Kansas isn't under-represented compared to Alaska, but it is compared to a huge feeder state like NJ.</p>
<p>Schools want as many states as possible, but often their marketing materials break the nation down into regions. The Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic are the two most overrepresented areas for IVY's and most of the top LAC's which are found between Pennsylvania and New England.</p>
<p>I think the worst states to be from are:</p>
<p>New Jersey
New York
Massachusetts
Connecticut</p>
<p>You may as well put New Hampshire and Pennsylvania right up there if we are talking about schools located between PA and Vermont. The states I listed above have better public schools than most of the nation, so they get better applicants. In addition to this, students from these states often have an IVY mentality that is not evident to anywhere near the same extent in the south, midwest, southeast, or west coast. The LAC's are often household names amongst educated families, but these same LAC's have never been heard of in other regions of the country.</p>
<p>Being from the midwest is a pretty big hook at a lot of schools; I've seen Ohio help out a lot of applicants and Kansas is more sexy than Ohio.</p>
<p>What about southern states like Georgia??</p>
<p>what about Quebec?</p>
<p>Being from the South can be a hook for NE, especially if you are not from a 'burb of Atlanta.</p>
<p>That's exactly where I'm from- a 'burb of Atlanta. Haha.</p>
<p>Kansas is an underrepresented state but the Ivies usually receive at least some applicants from there. </p>
<p>For everyone else, don't be quick to judge states as a whole. An applicant from southwest Texas or rural northern california might be just as underrepresented as the typical underrepresented states, even though they come from overrepresented states.</p>
<p>for ivies, it is probably not advantageous to be from...</p>
<p>New York
New Jersey
Pennsylvania
Virginia
Massachusetts
Connecticut
California
Illinois
Texas</p>
<p>What about Arizona and New Mexico?</p>
<p>That's an interesting point to argue. If it is disadvantaged to be from Jersey for the selective schools, why do they admit so many? Anyone care to share your thoughts ?</p>
<p>Also most well-to-do NewYorkers dont live in Jersey ( who'd want to ? )
They live in Long Island...etc. So its average Joe families in Jersey. Could there be greater parental will for their child to aspire to something greater in these communities ?</p>
<p>How about Michigan, not in Detroit?</p>
<p>I'm not far from there, and travel there frequently. From my perspective, a lot of the lower and western midwest is underrepresented in applications to the east coast schools. There are a few reasons for this:</p>
<p>1) The mindset there is largely "our local (flagship) state schools are plenty good enough". There is a much different mentality about this than in the Northeast, where I grew up.</p>
<p>There are good suburban schools out here where fully 50% of the graduating class is attending the state schools. And that includes a good number of the top students. </p>
<p>Some time ago my wife spoke with a local person who did alumni interviewing for Harvard. She was told that it's not uncommon for an accepted applicant to turn down Harvard for the state school. Some people out here just don't think it's worth the money.</p>
<p>And if their plans are to stay around here, the fact is: they are correct. The networking advantages of being from the state school around here are overwhelming. People are impressed by an Ivy degree, but they might view people who have them as people who are not really going to stick around here for long. Outsiders.</p>
<p>2) If they want a prestige degree they don't have to go way out of driving distance to get it. </p>
<p>Besides the state universities, proportionally more of these kids head to : Northwestern, U Chicago, Wash U, Carleton, Macalester, Grinnell. The local prep schools send many kids to Northwestern, few to Cornell.
Why should these kids travel 20+ hours to get to Ithaca NY, when they can drive to Chicago in less than half the time? </p>
<p>3) The other coast is not significantly farther from there than the Northeast is.</p>
<p>The top students there are probably as likely to head to Stanford as to Harvard. USC, UCLA, Pomona, Claremont- these schools also attract their share of the kids who would likely be going to the Northeast schools if they lived in the northeast.</p>
<p>4) Salaries in this part of the country tend to be a lot lower than in the Northeast. At least in the fields I'm familiar with. There are fewer people who can afford the full-fare cost of private education.</p>
<p>From observing admissions at my kids' schools, it doesn't seem like there is any regional affirmative action going on in admissions. About the same percentage from there get admitted as the national average for the top schools, and the kids that get in by and large deserve it. I doubt that it's any different in Kansas.</p>
<p>What about Alabama? </p>
<p>The state's educational mentality is very similar to monydad's description of the midwest. About half of each high school graduating class will attend either University of Alabama or Auburn University. And as for networking...it's rare for many elected state government officials to have degrees from colleges other than U of Alabama. The "good old boy" mentality down here is hard to break.</p>
<p>
[quote]
why do they admit so many? Anyone care to share your thoughts?
[/quote]
greater populations, stronger students, stronger academics (national merit cutoffs in the new england area is in the 220s while elsewhere in the country such as south states like mississippi and alabama its 199-200), higher concentration of motivated students, the "ivy league feeder schools" such as exeter, andover, deerfield, st. paul's, bronxscience, thomas jefferson school, choate.</p>
<p>arizona has more ivy league students than new mexico, however, that doesnt say much. both states have very low representation in the ivy league, rarely is there ever a double digit representation at a single ivy. as a result, i know for arizona not sure for new mexico, it is usually the same schools that send students to ivies each year.</p>