Geographic Diversity: Building Your College List Santa Fe NM

Geographic Diversity: Building Your College List

By Howard and Matthew Greene

In today's admission environment, it's more important than ever to develop a diverse application group. Including geographic diversity in your list of colleges can help you open up exciting choices that fit your goals and interests. How? Most colleges actively seek students from outside their core geographic area, and most students tend to stay within a few hundred miles of home when attending college.

Avoiding ""the bunching effect""
Many, if not most students we talk with begin their college search within driving distance from home. Two to five hours seems a typical comfort level for most families. Of course, some students start the college process convinced they want to get as far away from home as possible!

Most students are aware that graduates of their high school seem to attend a relatively small group of colleges. These colleges might include a dozen or so of the more competitive institutions, plus a dozen or so public and private schools that have a good reputation in that high school. Perhaps the high school counselor has good relationships with college admission officers at some of those schools and routinely directs students to apply to them.

Creating a diverse college list
What's interesting is the fact that at nearby high schools, let alone schools an hour or two away, the preference lists are usually very different.

Author: Amy Ambler

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