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<p>The data that would help in answering this question is - what is the geographic distribution of those who apply to Harvard / get in and go versus the geographic distribution of those who apply to Harvard / get in and decide to go elsewhere. That would tell you a lot about which competitive sets these students were considering. In other words, is Harvard more of a “if admitted, can’t turn it down” in certain parts of the country compared to others. I don’t know, of course - I’m just hypothesizing. And if that is the case, is it driven by pure prestige or is it also linked to proximity to home. </p>
<p>Actually I wish I also had for the elite schools a distribution of where their applicant pool comes from, corrected / adjusted for population density.</p>