Geographic Diversity in Admittance

Corbett
Mon, 12 Feb 2018 02:48:40 +0000

there are just so many kids applying practically everywhere from California that it doesn’t “count” the same way.

As a Californian, I agree that there is some truth to this. A few qualifications though:

(1) The biggest-name out-of-state private universities and LACs now have no trouble getting Californians. However, many out-of-state schools with lower national profiles would still like to get more. For example, Californians are 10% of the Princeton Class of 2021, but only 3% at Lehigh. Lehigh recently established a regional office in San Mateo in an effort to boost its visibility on the West Coast.
https://admission.princeton.edu/how-apply/admission-statistics
https://www1.lehigh.edu/about/glance
https://www1.lehigh.edu/news/provost-announces-launch-of-western-regional-office

(2) Although I have no data to back this up, I strongly suspect that the vast majority of Californians who apply to out-of-state private universities are from either the Bay Area or LA/OC/SD. My impression is that applicants from other parts of the state, say Redding, SLO or Bakersfield, are much less common and still get geographic diversity points.