<p>If RI only has a slightly better chance at getting people in, I’m pretty sure AZ’s admit rate was about 16%. So you’d do as well moving out west to a non-California state as to RI. Then again, out here the only people who seem to apply are pretty qualified, cause if they’re not qualified they don’t even know about Brown. The “well, just in case” school people apply to is Stanford instead.</p>
<p>Unsure.
I’m a Rhode Island resident (rising senior). My school’s Valedictorian of last year was rejected from Brown, but admitted to Harvard. This year, a girl in the top 15% of her class got in. The salutatorian of another school in the area was rejected from Brown.
Honestly I think most people I know are afraid to apply to Brown because they’re afraid of rejection or if they do get in, they’ll be hanging out at the same old places. Because there aren’t many.</p>
<p>Hello, sorry for the somewhat late reply. I am a Rhode Islander who was accepted into Brown, but decided to go to Harvard. My Harvard interviewer told me that Brown has an unofficial policy of accepting at least one student from every accredited high school in RI. At my school, I was accepted and another boy was waitlisted. However, though I decided to attend Harvard, the other boy was not accepted off the waitlist. Further, at least one person from my very average hs has gone to Brown as far back as I can remember. My year was an anomaly, but someone was still accepted.</p>
<p>Is MA overrepresented?</p>
<p>Slt: I wish Harvard had a policy like that…</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of any policy to accept one kid from each high school in the state. Your Harvard Interviewer would have no addition info about Brown that has to do with our admissions process.</p>
<p>Geographic breakdowns (by region and by state) can be found on this page: [Office</a> of Institutional Research at Brown University](<a href=“Office of Institutional Research | Brown University”>Office of Institutional Research | Brown University). It doesn’t show acceptances, but percentages of enrolled students.</p>
<p>I don’t know Brown’s specific policy for accepting students from RI, but I think admissions does make a special effort to accept RI students.</p>
<p>There is definitely some preference to RI, but it doesn’t seem large.</p>
<p>Modest: Coming from a small town, my Harvard interviewer knew my Brown interviewer quite well. He (Harvard interviewer) told me that, barring any exceptional circumstances (such as say, only one kids applying from a school with poor grades), Brown made an effort to get someone in from every high school. It was an off-the-cuff remark, of course, and I didn’t press him on it, because I didn’t want to spend my Harvard interview talking about another school.</p>
<p>I also remember reading in an education magazine a remark from a Brown admissions official that Brown gave “Rhode Island applicants a second look”. It’s no guarantee, of course, but the fact is you DO have better odds coming from RI than the average applicant.</p>
<p>I don’t think that modest disagreed with that statement, but the other one about having one kid from each HS.</p>
<p>Slt10T, I don’t know how interviewing at Harvard works, but interviewing at Brown is open to any alumni and doesn’t give you a whole lot of special knowledge or insight into the process. In fact, wolfman and myself are both qualified to be Brown interviewers.</p>
<p>What I am saying is that Brown has no overt policy that’s known outside of the admissions department’s walls that says anything about accepting one kid per high school in RI. They will tell you that RI applicants definitely have a small advantage.</p>
<p>Ah well, perhaps my interviewer wasn’t sure. It seemed logical since my school (a very average public school) sends someone off there every year. Sorry to misreport any info.</p>
<p>The local preference exists at most universities, but there are reasons to think that it has to be stronger at Brown than at most comparable schools: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Other than a few perennial “feeder” high schools, the schools in Rhode Island are pretty weak. After filling the initial spots in the RI quota from the usual suspects, Brown doesn’t have the same depth of pool to fill out the rest, as it would if located in MA, NY, NJ, CT, or CA. </p></li>
<li><p>Brown is the sole major-player university in Rhode Island, so in some sense has to shoulder the burden alone of “educating the future leaders of the state”, or facing calls from the local politicians to do so by accepting the product of the public high schools.</p></li>
<li><p>Rhode Island is relatively low in black/Hispanic population, so the admissions office can’t use the RI quota to reduce the URM quota (getting two for one). </p></li>
</ol>
<p>I think the strategic implication of this is that if you are the top student at an average RI public high school, or a good minority student at such a high school, and your stats indicate that Brown will be your top choice if admitted (you aren’t that likely to have other top 10 schools as options), then you do have an admissions advantage, and that advantage becomes a lot stronger if you apply early decision.</p>
<p>Similar analysis may hold for New Hampshire applicants to Dartmouth, though I don’t know how good or bad the NH public schools are in general.</p>
<p>Of the people I knew at Brown from RI -</p>
<p>1- Portuguese (Hispanic or White? whatever.)
1- Mexican
1- Indian
2- White
1- Black</p>
<p>Just who I knew…</p>
<p>Yes, although it’s a small sample that is in line with the reasoning in #32. </p>
<p>Portuguese and Azorean (major RI communities) don’t count as Hispanic in the Federal regulations. That is one of the demographic reasons why it’s harder for Brown to fill the local quota without over-constraining the rest of the selection. This would put a big premium on RI minority applicants, and give Brown a stronger incentive to acquire as many of them as possible than for non-RI minorities (i.e. there is a synergy between the minority preference and the local preferences). When you sample those enrolled from RI you expect an elevated share of minorities; because the admission and matriculation rates are (under this logic) increased in that pool, especially with early decision.</p>
<p>Regarding the logic that moving to a isolated state will help you - false.</p>
<p>Living there your entire life will. I may be living proof of that one.</p>