Scholarships will often give extra points to applicants from states or areas that aren’t usually represented at their program. Like, you expect a ton of applicants to come from California, New York, and Texas not only because of their large population base but because of the large amount of academic resources available. But when you see a kickass candidate from West Virginia, which doesn't invest as many dollars per capita into education, the belief is that those candidates have to work much harder to achieve the same level of success than students from wealthier states. And that’s a proxy for the level of passion and dedication the student has for the subject.
I’ve been on the selection panel for a scholarship for several years and you see this pretty often. All the candidates have excellent scores and generally write good statements of purpose. But the ones who manage to do that without a bunch of built-in advantages will benefit the most from the scholarship.
