<p>I didn’t have that experience. I went to UCSC, was accepted to UWashington and UChicago and rejected from UCSF (and Rockefeller). And at the time I was applying I was living in Atlanta, GA and was totally out of the geographical area of all the schools.</p>
<p>What I did find interesting was that most of the people interviewing at UChicago were from the midwest/northeast and most of the people at UWashington were from the West Coast. You can read this as the schools only were interviewing people from their area (and I was the outlier) or that people apply to more schools in their living/undergraduate area, and lead to a geographical application bias.</p>
<p>I’d love to know if this is true, but I can’t think of a reason it would be. Perhaps it’s simply that grad schools get more applicants from nearby candidates, so it just seems as though their acceptance rate is higher. Grad schools, like companies, want to “hire” the best candidates, and since the school is not paying for relocation, there doesn’t seem to be an incentive to select locals. In fact, doing so would tend to limit the diversity of the student body.</p>
<p>I think the regional preference may be a factor especially when you are talking about LACs or smaller universities => graduate programs. For instance, a student at Haverford is more likely to get respect in the Northeast than in the Northwest, just as a Pomona student will be respected more in the West than in the East or South. That doesn’t mean that students from those LACs can’t get into graduate school outside of their regions, only that people who live in those regions (i.e. faculty members) are more likely to be familiar with the rigors of the undergraduate education. </p>
<p>The faculty members on admissions committees don’t work in admissions full-time the way undergraduate admissions people do, so they are more likely to be influenced by their own academic/research sphere, which may, or may not, be regional. When you are talking about a lot of applications for few spots, you get into the realm of splitting hairs as the pool of qualified applicants gets winnowed down. Faculty bias (evaluation of undergraduate institution, research area, who wrote the LORs – even department politics) can come into play as they select the final group. If the adcom respects a particular university, then they will be more likely to accept an applicant from that university over one with a similar profile who attended a university with which they are less familiar.</p>
<p>I just had this conversation with DS. He flew from west coast to east coast every weekend during the snowy months of interviews. Being from west coast school didn’t seem to hurt him at all for acceptances. The PIs seem to know each other, or at least have some familiarity with each others’ work.</p>
<p>My son feels peers chose the best program, and I think they consider location when making final selection. I don’t think the grad school profs consider the location of the applicant, but rather, what kind of research and demonstrated interest they show, and familiarity with the PIs.</p>
<p>any opinions for international student? I’m from Australia and looking to do a Master’s in Real Estate in your fine country (absolutely nothing worth doing here for the time and money). I had attended Queensland University of Technology which is one of 4 college’s here that even have a property specific undergrad and would love to do a MSRED in the states but not entirely sure how they would view international students let alone our coursework. Any guidence?</p>
<p>IMO, the quality of the undergraduate department does matter, because at a quality department the applicant has more opportunity to do research with well-respected professors.</p>
<p>I said department and not college intentionally. A lesser-known college can have a great department in a specific field.</p>
<p>And of course many people get into graduate school from lesser-known colleges, so the effect is small, in my experience.</p>