<p>I totally feel for Idiosyncra3y. hopingdad’s and homer314’s use of ad hominem argumentation is not respectable, especially among educated people. Idiosyncra3y has posited some solid points with respect to the variety of factors that can explain why Massachusetts is overrepresented in Harvard’s admit pool. </p>
<p>That being said, there is some truth to hopingdad’s assertion that Harvard has a special preference for applicants in MA. As cltdad indicated, there is an interview somewhere with Dean Fitzsimmons in which he explicitly states that Harvard holds MA students in special favor in contrast to out-of-state students (I forgot the exact wording). However, to say that moving to MA increases one’s chances of admission by a factor of three is a gross oversimplification of the variety of factors that go into screening applicants, as Idiosyncra3y argued. You cannot simply look at the statistics posted above to determine how much of a role geography plays in getting into Harvard. </p>
<p>Adding on to Idiosyncra3y’s example, there are several traditional Harvard feeder schools in MA, such as Boston Latin School, that send a disproportionate fraction of their graduating classes to the college. For these students, the edge in admissions comes from attending these high schools, not necessarily from living in MA. So while applying from MA has intrinsic value, judging the impact of living in MA in admissions from state representation statistics alone will inflate it.</p>
<p>18 days, 20 hours, 42 minutes</p>