Private school "regional" bias?

[bodiddely]

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Hey all,

I was just having a conversation with a family friend who has been an OMFS for the past 20 years. I did my undergrad in SoCal and am doing my pre-reqs in NM. He advised me to apply at UMKC and Creighton (obviously cause I'm a NM resident and the state has deals with these schools) but also to apply to USC and UCLA because I did my undergrad in SoCal and he said that I would have a good chance at these schools because of that (even though I'm not a CA resident). He discouraged me from even applying to NYU, BU, Temple and Tufts because "they want to take care of the east coasters." He also advised me to apply to Illinois because my grandfather did his DDS and ortho residency there (and his group of ortho residents is apparently pretty well known among orthos)... and he really encouraged me to push the family legacy at all schools I apply to.
Do you all feel there is any truth to this sentiment about private schools being "regionally cliquish"? And how much do you think I should push the grandfather thing?

Thanks for your advice! I'm not applying for another 18 months but was just curious what you all thought about his advice.

 

[endoking]

For some reason, schools seem to like it if you've had a relative graduate from their school. As far as east coast schools, I'm from Idaho and my buddy and I were both accepted to Temple, so I don't think they hold a real heavy bias. But I ended up at Creighton and they do seem to gravitate toward mostly midwest apps (other than the states they have deals with). This could be due to the fact that most of their applicant pool is in the midwest though.

 

[armorshell]

I think you're going to have a hard time seperating out applicant bias (more NE applicants apply to NE schools than other regions) from actual admissions bias (they like NEsterners better).

That being said, they don't call NYU University of California: Manhattan just for fun 😛