<p>Among hardcore engineering/CS folks, CMU does have a bit of an extra cachet alongside MIT, Caltech, and Stanford. </p>
<p>However, you do have an excellent point that while Berkeley is slightly outside that rarified trio, the quality of its engineering/CS programs are so close to them that questioning whether that trio is worth paying extra for is understandable. </p>
<p>Incidentally, plenty of classmates from my NYC area public magnet wanted to attend UCB. Main issues, however, was high OOS cost, competitiveness in gaining admission was practically on the level of other elite private colleges when we applied*, and concerns about whether problems with registering for critical core/major classes could extend the 4-year undergrad plan to 5+ years. </p>
<ul>
<li>At that point, they may as well apply to MIT, Caltech, Stanford, CMU, or the Ivies/peer institutions.<br></li>
</ul>
<p>NMSC manages their national merit semifinalist allocations by state using the student population numbers. If I were doing this exercise, I would use the table on page 23 for semifinalists and convert that to a percentage of students in each state as part of the national total. So Texas would be (1348/16000) x 100 or about 8.4% of national total which seems to be pretty close with 8+% population. However, I tried the same with Florida and the student population is only 5.1% for the nation while Florida population seems to be 6.1% which is 20-25% off.</p>
<p>I don’t really use the words National or Regional in trying to differentiate colleges. However, I would think that someone who did would be thinking more about the schools brand, and how helpful it is outside of your home state or region, instead of the home region of attendees.</p>
<p>For example, RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) is a very good school that is probably not well known by anyone who is not from New York State or the Rochester area. That does not mean it isn’t a great school, but if you move to Georgia or California, few people will know about it.</p>
<p>National brand recognition is also a problem for some of the Ivies, and CalTech. However, these schools are well known to recruiters and highly educated people who tend to be involved in hiring decisions. Ivies have the added bonus of being able to say “Its an Ivy League school” as a last resort, if someone still does not recognize it. This may also work for a Big Ten, ACC, SEC school, or Pac 10 school.</p>
<p>Washington University (STL) has been mentioned several times in this thread. My impression is that they have a National reputation in Medicine, and certain academically focused subjects (a great social work program, I am told). However, their reputation with employers is not so strong nationally compared to other top schools. In most majors, the college brand does not matter much, however, in a few such as business, and engineering, it could have an impact. </p>
<p>I know Pittsburgh isn’t in the Midwest, and said exactly that in my earlier post. I was responding to the poster who commented on how west the city actually was and went on to make the point that even though Pittsburgh isn’t as far from the NE as Midwestern cities, it can still be a royal pain to travel to. Now that US Air (I think?) left Pittsburgh, there just isn’t the service there used to be. Also, I never said the cancellations were always for weather. More frequently it seems that perhaps the flights don’t always fill up so they consolidate two or three. A friend whose son went to CMU has complained to me many times about the travel there (and they are accustomed to flying to India).</p>
<p>This is an interesting analysis, but my takeaway is different. One of the two base assumptions is wrong. The NE over-samples in three of the four regions and outperforms in the West compared to the Midwest and South. Either the college age students are over-represented in the NE, or they are smarter in the NE. It would be difficult to correct for this, but when I look at the data and attempt to adjust for the underlying data, I see the schools identified in the NE are more national than the other schools identified.</p>
<p>Rachel Toor, in Admissions confidential stated that Duke reserves 13% of each class for students from North Carolina. I have read that Harvard wants a certain number of students from Massachusetts. Is this provincial of the universities, or pragmatic measures to support their states?</p>
<p>As a Northeast parent, yes my children have/have had out of state private schools on their lists. On the other hand, travel convenience is a significant factor. If you live near Chicago or Charlotte, you may underestimate the difficulty in reaching certain universities. Direct flights are preferred. Flying significantly increases the cost of the whole college thing.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if I had placed “fighting provincialism” on my list of goals for college for my NE kids, they’d be looking in Great Britain, Ireland, or Canada. A US college wouldn’t be sufficient. </p>
<p>Virginia is not Northeast. No state which was once a member of the Confederacy can be considered a Northeastern state.</p>
<p>This one has overall population and school enrollment status by state for the 2000 census, see page 2. <a href=“http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-26.pdf[/url]”>http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-26.pdf</a> California had 12% of the population, but 14.8% of the students enrolled in college. The West as a whole had 21% of the population, but 25.5% of those enrolled in college. Every other region had a smaller share of students in college than it had of general population. (Note that the Census Bureau includes Virginia and D.C. in the South.)</p>
<p>sally, again, I don’t think the attitude you are supposedly refuting is that common, if it even exists. For one thing, why would even college-interested folks care all that much where anonymous students from another region attend school? Certainly the prestige hounds of the NE aren’t going to complain if kids from Minnesota don’t want to apply to the NE elites. Less competition that way. In general, the only choice that seems to get universally picked apart is that of the NE kid who really wants to attend an Ivy or elite LAC. When I lived near Chicago, I never heard anyone accuse an IL kid of provincialism for wanting to attend the University of Chicago or Northwestern. Even on this thread, the venom is directed toward the NE. But again, if we had state universities like UCB or the Univ. of Michigan to attend locally, there would be FAR less clamoring for the Ivies et al. </p>
<p>Interesting, JHS. The %s for the northeast states don’t surprise me because they are geographically small, in some cases densely populated, and there are not extreme differences across borders in most cases.</p>
<p>GFG, this subject has been discussed here since time immemorial. It is not a figment of anyone’s imagination. However, it doesn’t mean everyone from the east coast thinks the same way, anymore than it means everyone from region X or Y or Z thinks the same way. </p>
<p>Oh, come on! Next time, I will make sure to add one of those emoticons to show a smiley face. There was nothing snarky in that reply. But if you want to find one, power to you!</p>
<p>Regarding the “point” that I am missing, it would be helpful to --perhaps-- make it clear what that point is supposed to be, because from my vantage point I see … none. If it were that clear, it should be easy to formulate what all that indexed data is supposed to mean. Both in general and, perhaps, in a manner that is specific and remotely related to what we tend to discuss on these shores. </p>
<p>To be clear, I am not talking about the point of travel anymore. It is just one of the many elements one evaluates when making his or her choices in an application list. </p>
<p>The point I am talking about is whatever the analysis of the “data” is supposed to yield? Was that not the raison d’etre of this thread? Again, I really do NOT see any point in going beyond the information shared by the schools. If a school such as Stanford tells me that 33 percent come from California, that is reasonable to know, but what difference does it REALLY make if that number were 15 or 55 percent? I for one would be more interested to know the racial and SES of the past few years as opposed to the geographical distribution. More interested also deserves a bit of perspective … it would be play a VERY small role! And, as far as the index of regional notoriety and appeal, I think it pales in comparison to Hunt’s prestigiosity. Both have zero RL relevance, but the latter one has some comical value. </p>
<p>Since I reside in the state that has the highest “brain drain,” or percentage of students studying out of state, I just don’t see how we are the provincial ones here in the NE. My sister-in-law in Dallas tells me it is very uncommon for students there to leave the state, and could think of only one of her kids’ friends who did—for Yale (In contrast, practically all my kids’ friends left the state). In NY, NJ and CT we actually do send out children not only out of state, but also out of region. Where do you think all those kids at Duke and Elon come from? So let’s not confuse status-seeking or quality-conscious with provincialism. As I said before, many folks in the aforementioned states will gladly go far to the very good schools that admit them. Can the same be said for students in Kansas? The accusation has been made on this thread that we NE folks expect Midwesterners to travel to our region for top schools we think are great (but apparently don’t impress them near enough), but that we ourselves won’t travel to the Midwest for college. That’s simply not true. </p>
<p>If the point of the thread is that a few northeasterners (who read and post on CC) shouldn’t get to define what makes colleges prestigious and midwesterners (who read and post on CC) are miffied those from other areas don’t understand how prestigious midwest colleges are, I’m not really sure that accusing the northeasterners of provincialism gets you to your goal. I think you need to point out how your colleges are better than northeastern choices., better than Stanford. That is what makes travel worthwhile. I find it unlikely you will shame anyone into considering an out of region college… I say this as a southerner who has had to deal with geographical prejudices for 35 years. </p>
<p>EVERYONE is provincial, unless they lack a home base and have been wanderers. The sheer numbers and long history/age of the northeast means tending to think the east coast is the center of the US universe. It is annoying how so many presume the rest of us should, of course, be familiar with their local schools et al. Name dropping- so what if a bunch of politicians went to some NE LAC? btw- Harvard’s medical school is recognized as top notch but not ALL of its residency programs are. You go to the medical school you get into and often this is based on your state residency. Different than lawyers- ALL physicians need a similar level of competence to be licensed- the big wig at Harvard is useless to most people as s/he is too busy/inconvenient etc.</p>
<p>Something for people to consider. The top ranked schools in the US will have professors who come from and obtained college degrees from all over. The elite professors got heir PhD’s at many, many different schools. Also- look at the authors of textbooks used at the elite schools. I did once at the store for Harvard- the authors are at many institutions from all over the US. Those in the field will recognize the authorities in their field and the best places to go for their particular area. </p>
<p>I think the preponderance of NE posters on CC has the rest of us trying to fight their perceptions. We often get overwhelmed by their sense of the world. Our centers are different. I wonder what would happen if the NE states would focus on improving their public u’s to the point elite students from OOS would bother applying in great numbers like they do to Michigan, Wisconsin, California and other large state schools? It is a lot harder to “college shop” when one has many small schools with limited seats instead of fewer large schools to consider of any given caliber. It must be horrible to have a gifted kid and not just be able to confidently send them to the Honors at state U.</p>
<p>This is Pizzagirl’s thread. I share a lot of her views on this but I can’t speak for her. The fact that threads like this have existed for years (not just on this site but on others addressing college-related issues) suggests that people have actual experience dealing with some of these prejudices. I know I have. And it’s not just college kids–I have several friends that live in the midwest but are from the northeast who are completely anti-south. One of them has never set foot below the Mason-Dixon line and doesn’t want to. She is from Philadelphia and has the perception that the south is hostile to Jews. (And this is a blond, blue-eyed woman who was raised Protestant and converted to Judaism when she got married.) She won’t even go to Atlanta or New Orleans. It’s weird.</p>
<p>* It must be horrible to have a gifted kid and not just be able to confidently send them to the Honors at state U.*</p>
<p>Gifted classmates of my kids accepted full tuition scholarships to the NE state U, and ended up dentists, doctors, lawyers and seem to be living pretty happily ever after. I haven’t heard any of them complain about their education.</p>
<p>I think many of us maligned East Coasters are busy trying to create Ed reforms for the K-12 population attending schools which can’t even produce kids eligible for college, so excuse us for not worrying about whether or not U Mass is “prestigious enough”.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, the debate about whether Whitman, Williams or Wellesley is more or less elitist and is this a good thing or a bad thing is quite ridiculous. A not insignificant number of children attend schools which do not prepare them for independent adulthood. period full stop. The fact that kids in Camden or Trenton NJ (living a bus ride away from Princeton) are attending schools which can’t seem to produce graduates reading at a ninth grade level seems to me more worthy of my time and attention than worrying about the Honors program at Rutgers. The kids who make it in to Rutgers will do just fine, thank you ver much.</p>
<p>Is it possible for someone to be proud of where they live (maybe even snobby) and still be aware of local conditions that need improvement? And work for that change? Isn’t that what makes someone an involved citizen? </p>
<p>If so, how does that mesh with this idea one needs to go away to broaden one’s mind? Someone has to stay home to work for change, right?</p>