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Notes -
I don't have it on hand, but there was a study which found that signifiers of achievement in rural areas actually impose a substantial penalty on acceptance rates among the Ivy league.
Ross Douhat described it as: "one of the [Espenshade and Radford] study’s more remarkable findings:
while most extracurricular activities increase your odds of admission
to an elite school, holding a leadership role or winning awards in
organizations like high school R.O.T.C., 4-H clubs and Future Farmers
of America actually works against your chances. Consciously or
unconsciously, the gatekeepers of elite education seem to incline
against candidates who seem too stereotypically rural or right-wing or
“Red America.”"
Espenshade's subsequent characterization was that "We mentioned, as a relatively minor point in the book, that students who had participated in career-oriented extra-curricular activites—especially if they held a leadership role or won an award—had a slight decrease in their chances of admission to these elite colleges".
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