<p>Fair enough. In my book, the difference between a discussion and a debate session, is that the debate is meant to convince the other side or win an argument. If you were to look at my history on this side, you will notice that I do believe in posting data as opposed to mere speculation. Unfortunately, after a while (a long while) it becomes tedious. And, it becomes easier to accept divergent opinions, and agree to disagree. </p>
<p>As far as your discussion with Goldenboy, I offered an opinion that both of you might not be talking about the same thing. While I wrote that the Arkansas data was not directly relevant to the theme of highly selective admissions, I did not endorse the view that Arkansas did not have competent students. Competent enough to be admitted at a school such as Harvard. I do, however, think that their absolute numbers are much lower than other states (size for one playing a role.) Simply stated, I think you will find more Harvard applicants in Dallas than in Little Rock. And more successful applicants.</p>
<p>^^You are probably right…but I would ascribe that to the “other” factors in Ivy admissions, not raw intelligence. Pizzagirl’s and bclintonk’s posts above support this idea.</p>
<p>And p.s.: I would not say I am in a “discussion” with goldenboy. He has not been back to this thread since he made his ____ claims. :)</p>
<p>On the other hand, it appears that suggesting an HBCU to a non-black student gets a rather negative reaction (not necessarily from the student) around these forums, even if the HBCU matches well with the student’s stated criteria. (An HBCU may not be racially diverse by the numbers, but it may be a “diversifying experience” for many students who are not members of a minority group in high school.)</p>
<p>One could argue that the data and the graphs lie, that absolute numbers are just as important (or more important) than relative distributions. Or we can argue about why the Ivy student bodies aren’t even more geographically diverse. At any rate, why do these questions matter? What are the supposed benefits of a geographically diverse student body? Do people believe that, if HS students from all over the country are clamoring for admission to a college, its reputation must be better than if a school only has regional appeal (and therefore, it actually must BE better)? Do people believe that exposure to a geographically diverse student body has important learning effects? In either case, do small differences matter?</p>
<p>I think about all we can reasonably assert at this point is that the Ivies (and other highly selective private schools) tend to have more geographically diverse student bodies than many other schools. One might consider this more or less desirable, all else being equal, but the specific employment effects, social effects, or learning effects could be hard to precisely identify and measure (beyond basic demographic facts, such as where alumni live & work after graduation).</p>
<p>I think you are probably right; as was jym626, as far as this thread goes. On those threads on AA however, I am not so sure. Thus the correction.</p>
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<p>Then I think this will make your blood boil. I certainly hope things have improved since those “good old days”.</p>
<p>Some years ago, a David Alexander Mitchell, M.A. (Oxon), PHD (Stanford) and a Rhode Scholar (1952) had something interesting to say about Oxford. Here are a few tidbits:</p>
<p>*I very well recall one black man, now of ministerial level in his own independent government, being told in the college baths after games, and to general laughter all round: I dont object to the black streaks you are putting on my towel, which you seem to have pinched, but I do object if there are any white streaks appearing on you.</p>
<p>All foreigners, even Canadians, were wogs (for golliwog or worthy oriental gentleman, et. Dub.) and it was generally said that Wogs begin at Calais.</p>
<p>One student from the East was called The Yellow Peril throughout his time at Oxford and another, an American with a limp, The Virginia Creeper- and they are still known as such throughout much of the enormous Oxonian network round the world.
*</p>
<p>Even for someone like me, schooled in the British tradition, find this brutal. I cant even begin to make this stuff up.</p>
<p>It actually surprises me that such a large percentage of Harvard freshmen are from Massachusetts - up there with New York and California in the big three. I think of Harvard as having more of a national reach than a local or regional one.</p>
<p>But as interesting as it may be, I agree with tk: what does it really matter? In our homogenous natiuonal culture, middle-class white kids are going to be pretty similar no matter where they come from - and I suppose it that middle-class Asian-American kids are going to be similar no matter where they come from, and also for middle-class African American, and middle-class Hispanic kids.</p>
<p>Keeping academic ability constant for now, I don’t think that a nationally diverse student body necessarily translates into quantifiable learning differences versus a less nationally diverse student body. And I agree that to some extent, an upper middle class from Winnetka isn’t all that different from the upper middle class kid from Scarsdale - though there is certainly a lot of surprise engendered when they find out that upper middle class kids from suburban Kansas City or Omaha or Tulsa a) exist and b) are really, just like them too. </p>
<p>But, it’s a personal preference of mine that I like having my kids go to a school that has a student body that has a national draw, all else being equal. I think there is an “experience” benefit to it, even if it can’t be quantified. I also think there is great general value in going away to experience another part of the country for college, that was an explicit part of our search, and that was one of the things that caused us to explicitly steer our son away from NU since we’re in the Chicago area (but respect his desires when he kept steering it back).</p>
<p>Annasdad - I live near Wheaton College. It doesn’t surprise me at all that it has a big national draw. Remember that it has an evangelical Christian flavor to it - in some sense, it’s the “Harvard of Christian colleges.” </p>
<p>The real piece of data that isn’t available isn’t where the student bodies come from. It’s where the APPLICANTS come from. No one responded to my Harvard example, but if MA is 4% of the US pop, 12% of the Harvard applicant pool comes from MA and 8% of the acceptees come from MA … Well, then Harvard overindexes to MA at a 200 index, but it still “under-accepted” MA applicants. So, did they “favor” MA or not? In that case, they didn’t favor MA - they just had a three-times-as-thick layer of MA applicants. </p>
<p>I submit the same principle works for most universities. The applicant pools are heavily skewed to their own / neighboring states, that’s all. Because so much is still regional, and most kids and parents desire to stay close to home, even at the elite levels. </p>
<p>I mean, listen to some of the whining on CC about how difficult it would be to get on a plane to, say, Minneapolis to attend Carleton, but they’d drive up to nowheresville, MA to attend Williams.</p>
Harvard gets a ton of application from states like Texas, Florida, Ohio, Colorado, and California which are nowhere near Cambridge. MA is one of the most highly educated states in the country with some of the most elite public and private schools around so of course there is going to be a much thicker layer of MA applicants at Harvard vis-a-vis North Dakota.</p>
<p>A school like Harvard probably gets a “ton” of applications from all over the place. Is there data somewhere that shows the number of applicants by region/state rather than the number of acceptances?</p>
<p>While this doesn’t show the number of actual applicants, it does say that 2507 students in MA (2011) had indicated the desire to sent their SAT score to Harvard at the time of registration.</p>
Why does that matter? If you have a personal preference for universities with “a student body that has a national draw” do you really care about those who applied but were rejected?</p>
<p>No, I think Harvard does not get a “ton” of applications from everywhere. I know of no direct source of data, but one can at least get some kind of impression from College Board state reports which include data on which schools were the top recipients of SAT score reports from each state. Harvard requires SAT Subject Tests from all applicants, so anyone applying to Harvard would need to send an SAT score report that would include SAT I, SAT II, or both. Harvard makes the list of top 45 recipient schools for college-bound seniors in most states. These figures would represent an upper bound on the possible number of applicants from the state; likely there’s some falloff because some might send score reports but then not complete their applications.</p>
<p>Massachusetts, Indiana, Tennessee, Arizona, and Washington State are all very close to each other in population (around 6.5 million). In 2011, exactly 2,507 Massachusetts college-bound seniors send (one or more) SAT score reports to Harvard. </p>
<p>That year, Harvard didn’t make the top 45 schools that are listed as having received the most SAT score reports from Indiana residents; the bottom school on that list (the University of Dayton) got score reports from 407 Hoosiers, so we know the number who sent score reports to Harvard had to less than 407. On the other hand, 469 sent score reports to the University of Chicago, 718 sent score reports to Northwestern, and 1,302 sent score reports to Notre Dame, so we can surmise that all those schools probably got a lot more applications from Indiana residents than Harvard did. (None of those schools made the top 45 among Massachusetts residents).</p>
<p>Harvard did make the top 45 among Arizona residents: 473 sent SAT score reports. That made it not quite as popular among Arizonans as USC (683) or Stanford (963), neither of which made the top 45 in Massachusetts, but it seems Harvard was the most popular Ivy in Arizona. Columbia was next at 347.</p>
<p>Harvard was also apparently the most popular Ivy in Washington State, with 661 sending SAT score reports. Again that’s less than USC (1,054) or Stanford (1,576), but more than the next-highest Ivy, Columbia with 579.</p>
<p>Assuming the falloff rate from score reports sent to applications completed was similar for all 4 states, it seems likely that Harvard received nearly 4 times as many applications from Massachusetts residents as it got from Washington State residents; more than 5 times as many from Massachusetts as from Arizona; and more than 6 times as many (or possibly well over that figure) from Massachusetts as from Indiana. </p>
Tennessee is an ACT state, while Arizona and Washington are split. Indiana is closer to Massachusetts in terms of SAT market share, but this is still a factor that needs to be accounted for.</p>
<p>Well, it takes a while to compile and arrange all this data, but here’s a start showing 5 Southern schools.</p>
<p>Based on data on 2010 enrolled freshmen provided by the U.S. Dept of Education, the student bodies at elite private colleges in the South are as regionally inflected as the Ivies—especially once you understand what regions they serve.</p>
<p>Duke: South 34.2%; Northeast 32.1%; Midwest 8.2%; West 14.1% (including CA 8.5%). As has long been apparent, Duke is almost as much a Northeastern as a Southern school. In fact, it’s best characterized as an Atlantic Coast school (and of course it’s a member of an athletic conference by that name). It draws very poorly from the Midwest and only a little better from the West, and in fact it draws poorly from the South once you get away from the Atlantic Coast (only 20 from TN, 7 from AL, 3 from MS). Biggest producers: NC (209), NY (154), CA (148), FL (146), NJ (92). Californians attend Duke in substantially lower numbers than they attend the Ivies (only 8.5%, well below Cali’s weight in the national population), yet the state is so big that it’s still one of the biggest sources of students.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt: South 45.2%; Northeast 23.2%; Midwest 18.5%; West 6.3% (inc. CA 3.8%). The South is overrepresented relative to population, Northeast about proportional, Midwest close to proportional, and West very much underrepresented. Westerners, including Californians, seem to have little interest in the Middle South. Midwesterners come mainly from IL and OH, states that are relatively close to Nashville. Northeasterners come mainly from NY-NJ where people may simply be more prestige-conscious than elsewhere; Northeast numbers are otherwise fairly modest. Southerners come mainly from TN, TX, GA, FL, KY, AL—not from the Carolinas.</p>
<p>Emory: South 53.3%; Northeast 27.6%; Midwest 8.8%; West 10.3% (inc. CA 6.2%). South overrepresented relative to population with about 80% of the Southerners coming from 3 states, GA, FL, and TX; the rest of the South is actually underrepresented. Northeast slightly overrepresented, with most again coming from NY-NJ. Midwesterners again largely from OH & IL, but in about half the numbers as at Vandy which for them is an easy drive; Atlanta’s not. Californians slightly more interested than at Vandy but still underrepresented.</p>
<p>Wake Forest: South 43.3%; Northeast 37.8%; Midwest 7.8%; West 6% (inc. CA 3.3%). Like Duke only more so, with South and Northeast overrepresented and Midwest and West (inc. CA) heavily underrepresented. Like Duke, Wake draws most of its Southerners from the Atlantic Coast states (Carolinas, GA, FL), very few from the interior South. Unlike Duke, it gets more Northeasterners from MD & CT than from NY & NJ. Basketball perhaps? Perceived lack of prestige in NY-NJ? Both? Californians show little interest.</p>
<p>Rice: South 57.6% (inc. TX 46.8%); Northeast 11.8%; Midwest 6.2%; West 12.8% (inc. CA 7.4%). Basically Rice gets about half its students from Texas, then a few here and there across all other regions. Outside of Texas, it’s not actually very popular in the South (kind of like Texas itself, I suppose).</p>