My students in Fairfax, Arlington, and the continuous cities (cities are separate from counties in Virginia) are convinced that we have to balance out the class between the 95 counties and 38 independent cities in Virginia and that means it's easier to be admitted from the counties with smaller populations. Rumors of regional quotas are pretty prevalent in my territory in Northern Virginia.
I've been at UVA for 11 years, so you can imagine how many times those words have come out of my mouth! I say this sentence during every information session, evening program, and high school visit.
'Beyond our in-state to out-of-state ratio (2/3 of our students are Virginia residents), there are no restrictions, targets, or quotas regarding how many students we may take from a high school, town, county, or region.'