Harder for East Coast Students

JHS
Mon, 19 May 2014 17:18:24 +0000

At least as of 7-8 years ago, the Stanford admissions office was telling East Coast alumni and donors that it was a (slight) advantage to have their kids be applying from the East Coast. No one verified that, though; it could have been complete b.s.

My guess would be that there’s no real difference for people applying from the Boston-Washington corridor. There may be some advantage for people applying from areas where Stanford may not get as many applications – West Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama (just guessing).

If you look at the numbers, you would have to factor in the extent to which (a) essentially all of Stanford’s faculty/administrative kids are West Coasters, (b) a majority (maybe a large majority) of the most active alumni are on the West Coast, © it’s easier for coaches to recruit on the West Coast, (d) the historical feeder schools are on the West Coast, and (e) a lot of the outreach to disadvantaged applicants is going to be on the West Coast. If you are from L.A. or Seattle, and not in one of those categories, I doubt you have any kind of advantage vs. an equivalent student from the New York or Boston metropolitan area.