<p>Here’s one perspective – E pluribus unum. The State of Texas just announced the worst showing on standardized tests in recent memory. In my former neck of the woods (not Dallas) the results were abysmal, and if I might add, unsurprisingly so! This is a community that shoots for the minimum 920 at the local state university that is enrobing itself in the glamour of the Mother Teresa and Forbes annual rankings. Horrendous public K-12 at districts that spend more time trying to identify the felons who masquerade as administrators than educating kids. The biggest game in town is to chase those elusive federal and state grants that might line the pockets of a few insiders. </p>
<p>Yet, the locals are excessively proud of their local version of the almighty UT, and consider a trip to TAMU or UT at Austin as the pinnacle of education And despite this very few of the automatic admits (read 7-10 rules) will consider a move to Austin or College Station. In provate, when looking at the evidence, the locals MIGHT realize that there is a tremendous need for improvement. For good or bad, the people who are in the position to realize this have usually opted to pay for the affordable tuition at the couple of private schools worh their salt, and especially in terms of admissions at the HYPS cum Notre Dame, WUSTL, and MIT. </p>
<p>Aren’t there more studies in contradiction? </p>
<p>I was just responding to the poster who seemed to be crying “shame on you” that us East Coasters don’t invest more in making our State flagships “worthy” of our kids. Sorry to derail the thread.</p>
<p>"think you need to point out how your colleges are better than northeastern choices., better than Stanford. "</p>
<p>. I don’t own any colleges, and just because I live in the Midwest doesn’t make Midwestern colleges "mine ". I have zero interest in trying to prove they are “better than” the NE colleges or Stanford. </p>
<p>"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. "</p>
<p>I’ll leave aside the obvious observation that it’s easier to be out of state from teeny-tiny states than, say, California I do wish I could look at the data by MSA vs census, but that’s all I had. </p>
<p>I am perplexed by the reactions that. “Well, we NEers do too send our kids out of state / out of region.” Of course you do - how else do non NE schools develop national student bodies without that! My observations are about the regionalism of colleges in general, which includes but is not limited to the NE. In other words, it’s not about families, it’s about colleges. </p>
<p>The reactions were in response to posters who claimed NEers won’t leave our region for the Midwest because we allegedly think our schools are oh so special, but we expect Midwesterners to come East. Just saying that’s bunk. I think the example given was we’d be willing attend school out in the boonies if the school were Williams, but not if were Grinnell which is actually less rural. Such posters seem to be interpreting your study as the equivalent of saying, “See, the elite schools of the NE aren’t all that.”</p>
<p>"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. "</p>
<p>No! The basis of analysis is at the individual college level, not the geographic level of college-bound students. If College A is 200, 50, 50, 75 and College B is 75, 200, 50, 50 that says nothing about the propensity of each region’s students to go elsewhere. It just says that College A and B each skew strongly to a home region and under skew to all others. </p>
<p>I was surprised to see that there are 700 students who scored between 2100 and 2400 at UT (table 4) and another 1750 who scored between 1800 and 2100. Several of my colleagues’ kids chose to go to UT over other top 20 schools who wouldn’t give them any money. </p>
<p>Apparently not too many give a darn about USNEWS ranking slipping lower. Many of the best students in Texas are still attending UT and A&M.</p>
<p>Again, my observations are about the ability of the COLLEGES to attract / form truly national student bodies. No one, absolutely no one, has said the elite NE schools “aren’t all that,” least of all me because I adore such schools. We just get a little tired of “northeast = national, other regions = regional.” It’s not a competition. Every single school I listed in my first few posts is an excellent place. </p>
<p>And it’s reinforced when you hear things on CC like (for example) “WashU - who the heck knows where that is?” But god forbid someone would say the same thing about, say, Brown. Who are we kidding? Both of these schools have strongest brand power in home region and their brand power trails elsewhere. But no, if Brown is known in the northeast, that’s “nationally known.” I think these two are the same darn thing, frankly. </p>
<p>“think the example given was we’d be willing attend school out in the boonies if the school were Williams, but not if were Grinnell which is actually less rural.”</p>
<p>The example wasn’t Grinnell (which is extremely rural) but Carleton, which is in a suburb of a major city. But I understand why you mixed up Iowa and Minnesota. They are just oh-so-indistinguishable on a map, lol. :-). (Can you imagine if I mixed up NJ and MA?) </p>
<p>You persist in being inflammatory, PG. I didn’t mix up Iowa and Minnesota, I mixed up whether someone mentioned Grinnell or Carleton. Having not been to either, I have no idea how rural they are. I also haven’t been to Williams or Middlebury, so you can’t extrapolate any regionalism about that. As to the concept of Brown being a national university, I would never put it in that category either. Also, not knowing where Washington University of St. Louis is is like not knowing who’s buried in Grant’s tomb.</p>
<p>I was the one who mentioned Grinnell as a random example of a somewhat remote school that is actually not that hard to get to and that is easily accessible from the east coast–with reasonable airfare. </p>
<p>Creating Ed reforms for K-12 kids attending lackluster K-12 institutions and the level of interest in creating public universities in the NE with the equivalent academic profiles of Midwest/West Coast institutions like UMich, UCB/UCLA, UIUC, UW-Madison, etc have little relation with one another. </p>
<p>If anything, the lack of the latter has much more to do with historical factors related to how private elite colleges like the Ivies or NE LACs were founded first and felt to fulfill the needs of those interested/able to afford attending college back in the 1600s onwards. </p>
<p>Up until the mid-20th century, there was not much in way of investment in public colleges in much of the NE compared with their midwest, west coast, or even some southern states like Virginia and North Carolina. </p>
<p>One exception to this in the NE was the CCNY/CUNY system which before 1969 had the academic profile equivalent to public elite colleges like UCB until charges of “elitism” and the like caused state/city TPTB to institute open admissions which caused that profile to take a substantial nosedive which they’re still recovering from 40+ years later and ended up eliminating the free tuition policy for city residents in 1975. </p>
<p>It’s a good example of what happens when you have a combination of shaky city/state finances and a campus being overwhelmed with un/underprepared students requiring serious remediation as some folks I knew who taught or were undergrad academic tutors in the '70s have recounted. One recalled tutoring math to aspiring STEM/heath science majors who couldn’t add/subtract fractions in the early-mid '70s. </p>
<p>The second “best” high school in El Paso has over 3,000 students. You can extrapolate the size of the pool of students with an auto-admission. Yet, in 2014, only 14 students enrolled in Austin. </p>
<p>That story is repeated all over South and West Texas. The auto-admission would collapse if more students from outside the large cities were to use their admission joker. </p>
<p>@xiggi - I don’t know for sure if you are saying best students are going or not going! </p>
<p>I agree that although a lot more students might be qualified, many are not applying or attending because either they don’t feel confident enough or don’t feel they fit in. I see many of the urban schools’ valedictorians in Houston choosing to attend University of Houston. I suspect they might be best in their schools but may not be best prepared to attend the state flagships.</p>
<p>OTOH, some of best private schools in Houston (I think of St. Johns as probably one of best academic schools in the nation - they have 35-40% of their graduating class qualify for national merit each year) sending about 10-20% of their graduating class.</p>
<p>Again, PG, your fundamental assumption is flawed. You start with the assumption that what makes a university a “national” university is that it enrolls students exactly or near proportionally across regions. What others of us are saying is that we disagree with that as a first principle. Your concept of “national” is unworkable in a country of our expanse and size. After all, it would necessitate that students and their families consider inconsequential a trip of 1000 miles. However, a trip like that is never going to be no big deal because of the cost and convenience, and for some parents the concern for the safety of their young ones leaving the nest.</p>
<p>Thus the idea needs to relate more to broad name recognition and academic reputation such that a critical mass of people from across the country and yes, internationally too, WILL actually apply and attend. Chinese nationals aren’t clamoring to get into Rider or Ball State, but they are clamoring to get into Harvard.</p>
<p>Those familiar with our northern neighbors can weigh in if I’m incorrect in this comparison, but the large country of Canada also does not have “national” universities as you define them, and the degree of out of region draw is far less than here. The quality of their provincial institutions is perceived to be equivalent, and as such leaving one’s metropolitan area for university is even less common. </p>
<p>Another flaw in your analysis is the failure to consider that the college admissions policies of potentially “national” universities are not neutral regarding geography. As pointed out by another poster earlier, some elite schools deliberately accept a larger proportion of students from the surrounding area in order to promote and maintain town-gown relations. Their intended distribution of admitted students does not match that which would be required under your “national” definition. Certainly Princeton does not need to accept as many students from Princeton High School as it does. No doubt there are plenty of equally-qualified applicants from other states it could accept instead, although admittedly these alternatives may not be from outside the larger region. </p>
<p>"Thus the idea needs to relate more to broad name recognition and academic reputation such that a critical mass of people from across the country and yes, internationally too, WILL actually apply and attend. "</p>
<p>Fair enough. I personally think “name recognition” is not equal to “academic reputation” (more people have heard of Duke than Wellesley, but that’s due to sports) and I still believe that the list of “recognized” names differs by region. </p>
<p>“As pointed out by another poster earlier, some elite schools deliberately accept a larger proportion of students from the surrounding area in order to promote and maintain town-gown relations. Their intended distribution of admitted students does not match that which would be required under your “national” definition. Certainly Princeton does not need to accept as many students from Princeton High School as it does. No doubt there are plenty of equally-qualified applicants from other states it could accept instead, although admittedly these alternatives may not be from outside the larger region.”</p>
<p>I agree most elite schools accept more within their immediate home environs due to good-neighbor policies. I’ve said in earlier threads that NU does this with Evanston Township HS and some of the underserved hs in Chicago. U Chicago likely does the same. Harvard does the same. Yale does the same. Etc. Undoubtedly some of that is linked to faculty kids as well. However, one would think that it wouldn’t be enough to skew to home region as much as it does for all of these schools. </p>