Hometown Effect on College Acceptance Rates

Colleges can no longer consider a student’s race as part of their admissions criteria, due to last year’s Supreme Court ruling.  But one bit of information that they can, and do, carefully take note of is a student’s zip code. Colleges seek to build a diverse student body, and the zip code of applicants provides an overview of their socioeconomic and, often, cultural background.     

Both public and private institutions seek a well-rounded incoming class. Public colleges, in most states, are required to favor in-state applicants as their tuition is supported by tax revenue.  Therefore, it’s often much more difficult for out-of-state students to gain acceptance, and when they do, they pay a much higher tuition.  At the esteemed University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, for example, state law rules that 82% of the student body must be comprised of in-state students; only 18% can be non-residents. Those out-of-state residents who attended the University this past academic year were billed $39,338 (not including room and board), greatly exceeding the $8,998 bill sent to in-state students.

Private universities, on the other hand, seek applicants from states that are not well represented in their student body.  So, New Jersey students may do well to look beyond the “Top 50” schools that are popular with their classmates and seek admission to colleges, strong in their major, that are not on the radar of the majority of their peers.

 

An extremely helpful tool in predicting one’s chance of success in the college application process is the use of Naviance.  Its scattergrams show students how their peers (at the same high school) fared when applying to specific colleges and universities. For each institution, previous applicants’ GPAs are plotted on the y axis and SAT or ACT scores are plotted on the x axis.  The outcome for each applicant – accepted, rejected, or waitlisted – is indicated with a specific color and symbol, depicting the caliber of students from their high school who were accepted to any given college.

 

Students at many Central New Jersey high schools benefit from a rigorous academic curriculum. But they may find themselves in competition with their peers as colleges will often accept just a limited number of students from the same school.  Thus, it’s important for students to exceed the minimum expectations of high SAT scores and an impressive GPA and differentiate themselves among their classmates. This can be done through a leadership role, passion project, or an extraordinary project that serves their school, community, or worthwhile organization.

Susan Alaimo is the founder & director of Collegebound Review, offering PSAT/SAT^® preparation & private college advising by Ivy League educated instructors. Visit CollegeboundReview.com or call 908-369-5362