Corbett

The geographic preference issue is not much different from the gender preference issue. The bottom line is that schools want balanced enrollments, but don't necessarily have balanced applicant pools. So they have to vary their admissions standards for different groups.

For example, top schools typically want more or less equal numbers of male and female students, but the applicant pool does not necessarily cooperate: many schools now get significantly more female applicants. Example: at Brown, 7,714 men and 11,383 women applied to enroll in Fall 2007. Brown wants balanced enrollment, so they have a lower acceptance rate for women. Many LACs, such as Swarthmore, Wesleyan, and Middlebury, do the same (Williams, incidentally, is relatively unaffected by this issue). So the basic laws of supply and demand work against female applicants at many schools.

Similarly, the Ivies and LACs in the northeast want balanced geographic representation. But the local MA/CT/NY/NJ/PA demographic does not cooperate: this region generates huge numbers of highly qualified applicants, and it seems like they all apply to MA/CT/NY/NJ/PA schools exclusively. So the basic laws of supply and demand kick in again.

Californians also have a reputation for provinciality in college applications, but not to the same degree.