<p>“Anyways, I think you are kidding yourself if you don’t think that kids from the Midwest and South don’t receive a “boost” in the name of geographic diversity.”</p>
<p>I may be wasting my breath here, but I think you’re wrong. Harvard took a boatload of people from Exeter (~25) and only 3 or 4 from my high school despite the fact my school was academically stronger. Many of my friends found it easier to get faculty offers at Harvard and other top schools than to be accepted as an undergrad. And they had distinguished themselves in major national competitions–math, science, and the humanities. And it was much easier to get into Caltech than Harvard or princeton–and Caltech does not practice geographic diversity or AA. I know for my alma mater, MIT, the bar was so high for admission from my high school that the majority of us graduated phi beta kappa (top 6%). Undoubtedly, they could have admitted many more that would have been above average there.</p>
<p>There are academic hotspots in the midwest and the south (TAMS for instance) where it is harder to apply. The poster ske mentioned that Harvard enrolled all but like one or two of the NYC math team and NYC didn’t even win the national championship that year. I presume he was talking about ARML because I don’t recall any other national math competitions where regions compete with each other. I knew many people on the Chicago ARML math team who had mediocre results with HYPS admissions (if not being completely shut out) despite the fact that Chicago actually won the ARML nationals. (Actually we were so deep that year our “B” team won.)</p>