Location can be a big driver of acceptance rates by boosting or suppressing applications.
For many of us parents, big city schools were “out” when we applied, but for our kids, big city schools are “in” and rural schools are “out.” In our generation, Columbia’s NYC location was seen as gross, now it’s seen as glamorous.
And I’m convinced that if a tornado picked up Carleton, St. Olaf, Grinnell, Beloit or Lawrence from the Midwest and plopped them down in New England, they would soon have admit rates below 10%.