<p>Also, I think it could be a possibility that Haas might give some weight to people in the local area. It stimulates the “local” economy -technically, if they stay- and there could be a track record of people who apply from SoCal not completing the SIR. It is really hard for individuals to just uproot their whole life and move far away, especially being older, as a transfer student. If there is a track record of SoCal students not following through, they may want to give more spots to people in NorCal to avoid missing their admissions target- this is all pure speculation. Furthermore, people in the Berkeley area could have better guidance on what it takes to actually get into Haas and help with their application; local counselors could have built relationships to Haas admissions to give their student an edge. </p>