"Geographic diversity"

[Anonymous]

Is it really a thing that people move to some place they don’t really want to go or have any connection to just so their kid has a better chance at XYZ University? Baffling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every college want inner city and rural kids because majority of the applicants are from suburbs. If you attend DC public schools vs Virginia public schools, colleges will see it as a more interesting and tougher experience.

Which has NOTHING to do with geographic diversity.

Sometimes on DCUM I feel like people have taken stupid pills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:i suspect that a student from the DC area might get a meaningful advantage if applying to a low population remote state such as Wyoming, the Dakotas, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and other places where no admission boost is needed.

Might generate better responses if certain targeted schools were named (Univ. of Texas, SMU, Rice, Colorado College, Pomona College, Claremont McKenna, Tulane, the Maine LACs, WashU in St. Louis, etc.).

I do not think that there is any geographic diversity boost for a DC area student in the Northeast US or for the elite Chicago schools.

I realize that this post may not be very helpful, but it may help to generate additional responses.

The DC area isn't a plus for ANY elite college, anywhere. Not WashU, not Pomona, Stanford, etc. Wishful thinking. If you're from here and applying ANYWHERE you are considered advantaged.

Not true with respect to URM or to socio-economically diverse applicants from the DC area. May not generate a boost for geographic diversity, but might for other types of diversity.

Duh. But that’s not what we’re talking about.

Actually, it might be as these areas often overlap. So, in your lingo, Un-Duh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it really a thing that people move to some place they don’t really want to go or have any connection to just so their kid has a better chance at XYZ University? Baffling.

There are insane people out there that think it matters where people go to undergrad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:i suspect that a student from the DC area might get a meaningful advantage if applying to a low population remote state such as Wyoming, the Dakotas, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and other places where no admission boost is needed.

Might generate better responses if certain targeted schools were named (Univ. of Texas, SMU, Rice, Colorado College, Pomona College, Claremont McKenna, Tulane, the Maine LACs, WashU in St. Louis, etc.).

I do not think that there is any geographic diversity boost for a DC area student in the Northeast US or for the elite Chicago schools.

I realize that this post may not be very helpful, but it may help to generate additional responses.

The DC area isn't a plus for ANY elite college, anywhere. Not WashU, not Pomona, Stanford, etc. Wishful thinking. If you're from here and applying ANYWHERE you are considered advantaged.

In the case of "geographic diversity", geographic distance is the advantage or disadvantage. Two kids who are otherwise exactly the same in income / scores / gpa / race but one comes from thousands of miles away and the other doesn't. Kid applying to UVA from Palo Alto > identical kid applying from McLean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it really a thing that people move to some place they don’t really want to go or have any connection to just so their kid has a better chance at XYZ University? Baffling.

There are insane people out there that think it matters where people go to undergrad.

Psst. It does. Particularly if you’re not from a family that is already successful and wealthy, college can open a million doors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:i suspect that a student from the DC area might get a meaningful advantage if applying to a low population remote state such as Wyoming, the Dakotas, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and other places where no admission boost is needed.

Might generate better responses if certain targeted schools were named (Univ. of Texas, SMU, Rice, Colorado College, Pomona College, Claremont McKenna, Tulane, the Maine LACs, WashU in St. Louis, etc.).

I do not think that there is any geographic diversity boost for a DC area student in the Northeast US or for the elite Chicago schools.

I realize that this post may not be very helpful, but it may help to generate additional responses.

The DC area isn't a plus for ANY elite college, anywhere. Not WashU, not Pomona, Stanford, etc. Wishful thinking. If you're from here and applying ANYWHERE you are considered advantaged.

In the case of "geographic diversity", geographic distance is the advantage or disadvantage. Two kids who are otherwise exactly the same in income / scores / gpa / race but one comes from thousands of miles away and the other doesn't. Kid applying to UVA from Palo Alto > identical kid applying from McLean.

Schools want to say 50 states. That’s the extent of the advantage of geographic diversity. If you’re from Mississippi applying to Carleton, it will help you. No school is struggling to check the Maryland or Virginia box and DC is irrelevant to the statement

[Anonymous]

Geographic diversity helps keep the student body from being 90% helicopter-mommed UMC kids from the DMV and the Northeast. Adding some Dothraki horsemen who can spell from the Great Plains helps balance things out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it really a thing that people move to some place they don’t really want to go or have any connection to just so their kid has a better chance at XYZ University? Baffling.

There are insane people out there that think it matters where people go to undergrad.

Psst. It does. Particularly if you’re not from a family that is already successful and wealthy, college can open a million doors.

There are literally hundreds of colleges where, if you get good grades and ECs, almost no career doors are shut to you.

[Anonymous]

It can only hurt you if you from a major area far away. Some schools are likely to reject you if they're enrollment managers tell them that statistically, you are not likely to attend since you live far away. I think University of Washington does this.

[Anonymous]

*their

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it really a thing that people move to some place they don’t really want to go or have any connection to just so their kid has a better chance at XYZ University? Baffling.

There are insane people out there that think it matters where people go to undergrad.

Psst. It does. Particularly if you’re not from a family that is already successful and wealthy, college can open a million doors.

+1
Actually, for some people it matters a lot. A lot a lot. Kind of stunned that you don't know this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:i suspect that a student from the DC area might get a meaningful advantage if applying to a low population remote state such as Wyoming, the Dakotas, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and other places where no admission boost is needed.

Might generate better responses if certain targeted schools were named (Univ. of Texas, SMU, Rice, Colorado College, Pomona College, Claremont McKenna, Tulane, the Maine LACs, WashU in St. Louis, etc.).

I do not think that there is any geographic diversity boost for a DC area student in the Northeast US or for the elite Chicago schools.

I realize that this post may not be very helpful, but it may help to generate additional responses.

The DC area isn't a plus for ANY elite college, anywhere. Not WashU, not Pomona, Stanford, etc. Wishful thinking. If you're from here and applying ANYWHERE you are considered advantaged.

Not true with respect to URM or to socio-economically diverse applicants from the DC area. May not generate a boost for geographic diversity, but might for other types of diversity.

Duh. But that’s not what we’re talking about.

Actually, it might be as these areas often overlap. So, in your lingo, Un-Duh.

[Anonymous]

[/quote]Schools want to say 50 states. That’s the extent of the advantage of geographic diversity. If you’re from Mississippi applying to Carleton, it will help you. No school is struggling to check the Maryland or Virginia box and DC is irrelevant to the statement [/quote]

If you are from the DC area, from an admissions standpoint there is no question you are better off applying to Carleton or Grinnell than to, say, Haverford. Whether that is deemed a geographical diversity “benefit” from being from the DC area or simply “less than the usual penalty” is irrelevant; what is relevant is how a student from this area might want to maximize admissions chances to these schools.

[Anonymous]

Anecdotally, we were told by college counselor that there is some advantage applying to Midwest schools that typically don’t receive as many applications from this area (Grinnel, Macalester, even Notre Dame). Rice too. The sense I got was it wasn’t going to make a candidate below stats work, but could make a well-qualified candidate more likely.

The negative reactions posters often have to going to school in these areas would support this theory.