But I thought HYP were national universities! Why are ALL schools so regional??

Parents Forum
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<p>I think this is where questions like this begin to break down. Because what is the SES of the WV student vs. the SES of the Virginia student? We know there is a tremendous correlation between test scores and SES, for various reasons, including, but not limited to Prep and education.</p>

<p>Many here are circling around the fact that the biggest difference, be it in willingness or ability to travel great distances, or even knowledge of various schools, is really a difference in SES. If we could break out the numbers in pure SES, I’m sure the differences in regions might well be the difference in SES more than anything else. </p>

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<p>Wellesley is well known and highly thought of at New Trier. I think you would have a hard time finding any NT kids who didn’t know this is an excellent school.</p>

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<p>^ Exactly. Only people of means can trek across the country to look at schools before Jr. applies. If Jr. hasn’t even visited the school to determine fit, the application fee is $100, and mom and dad know that a hefty plane fare for 3 or more trips back and forth per year are going to be added on to COA, then that school across the country could get nixed from Jr.'s list pretty quickly if it was ever on to begin with.</p>

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<p>“Wellesley is well known and highly thought of at New Trier. I think you would have a hard time finding any NT kids who didn’t know this is an excellent school.”</p>

<p>Yes! I agree! BECAUSE it’s an affluent bubble!</p>

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<p>Here’s what I went back and did with the numbers, to address the posters who think that the indexes mean “more kids from the Northeast are going out of region because look, they are indexing high in schools in some of the other regions.” This was bothering me because the actual # of schools in each region is different.</p>

<p>So here’s what I did.</p>

<p>I assumed each of these 22 top research universities had 10,000 students (just to make my math easy). I know that isn’t strictly true, but for our purposes that’s OK, unless someone wants to feed me the actual research university undergrad sizes.</p>

<p>Since I knew the %'s from each region at each school, I then went back and calculated the “raw numbers” of students from each region attending each college. Then I could sum them up different ways. Here’s what I found:</p>

<p>Assuming these students make up the universe of top students,
if I were to combine these students into one massive pool / uber-elite-university this is what I would find:
Northeasterners make up 42% of these students.
Midwesterners make up 16% of them
Southerners make up 21% of them
Westerners make up 21% of them
for a total of 100%.</p>

<p>If I compare them to the actual % of the population in each part of the country, I get these indexes:
Northeast 181, Midwest 74, South 66, West 91.
So … * it is true that Northeasterners disproportionately “fill the seats” of the nation’s elite universities*. The West is about average and the Midwest and South are below average.</p>

<p>HOWEVER … if I then look at these students and say “who stayed in their home region” and “who left home region,” here’s what I find:
73% of Northeasterners stayed in home region
45% of Midwesterners stayed in home region
31% of Southerners stayed in home region
31% of Westerners stayed in home region</p>

<p>In other words, Northeasterners (at least of the elite-school variety) are less likely to travel out of home region for their elite education compared to other regions.</p>

<p>The reason that this is, is simply because there are more “elite seats” in the Northeast region to begin with …
55% of “elite seats” are in the Northeast (8 Ivies plus MIT, JHU, CMU, Gtown)
18% of “elite seats” are in the Midwest (4 schools)
14% of “elite seats” are in the South (3 schools)
14% of “elite seats” are in the West (3 schools)</p>

<p>In other words - the people who kept saying “but this means NE’ers are more likely to travel outside home region” weren’t taking into account that yes, NE’ers are more likely than those in other regions to “sit” at an elite school, but those seats are also disproportionately * located* in the NE. </p>

<p>I’ll do the same with LAC’s at some point, but wanted to get the research university out there. </p>

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<p>A couple of comments:

  1. The statistics are interesting, but (of necessity) a bit mushy because of the problem of defining regions. For example, in my opinion Virginia really goes into two regions. The DC suburbs are part of the Northeast (broadly defined), while most of the rest of the state is really in the Southeast (and some of it is REALLY in the Southeast). I suspect that students south of Richmond would be more likely to apply to and matriculate at Duke than students around DC–but there might not be as many students in that area looking at schools like that in the first place.
  2. It would be interesting to know how these figures have changed over time. It would be my prediction that all of the colleges have become more “national” in their enrollment, but I think it is likely to have changed more at schools like Wash U.
  3. A number of good reasons for attending geographically closer schools have been mentioned (like travel, financial aid, etc.). Another one, I think, is that one may evaluate the quality of local schools more generously than schools that are farther away. It was mentioned earlier that people from Texas may not be that interested in Brown. One reason could be that, to a person in Texas, Rice is just as good as Brown, and is a lot closer to home (and maybe cheaper). I can attest that in my part of southern Virginia back in my high school days, many people didn’t think that Yale was “better” in any meaningful way than U.Va. To somebody in Rhode Island, on the other hand, it would probably take a lot of convincing to get people to think that Rice was as good as Brown. This is provincialism, in a way, but it’s pretty natural–and it’s part of local pride, as well.
  4. I wonder if the Naval Academy is even a good example in terms of service academies. It seems to me that it might appeal more to people who live on the coast.</p>
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<p>Completely agree. My college boyfriend was a perfect example of this. He came from a rural school in the poorest county in Tennessee. But he was smart, so someone had the good sense to steer him toward schools like Vanderbilt and WashU and Northwestern. His parents, knowing little about elite colleges, gave him some trip money and an old car and told him to go visit. He drove 1000-plus miles–alone, at age 17–to visit schools.</p>

<p>I don’t remember what his SAT score was (I don’t recall worrying about PSAT back then). I know mine was higher, because we used to joke about it. I had come from an academically rigorous private school. But there was no question in my mind that he was smarter than I was.</p>

<p>There is no reason to believe there aren’t lots of kids all over the country like him…or kids being brought up in ultra-religious environments where “secular” college is not an option…or kids with family commitments that keep them from even considering going far from home.</p>

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<p>I suppose we could plot state’s median income vs. PSAT NMSF cutoff and see.</p>

<p>But there is a correlation between it being expensive to live near NYC or Boston, and having your kids get a decent education in public schools. High property taxes? More liberals willing to pay them?</p>

<p>I would also think that is a reason that private schools get a separate PSAT NMSF cutoff. I’d think for most wealthy West Virginians, let’s say making $200,000 per year which is just above middle class near me near NYC, they’d drop 30K+ per year to send their child to a private school.</p>

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<p>Here are the corresponding figures for the elite LAC’s of which there were 21 of them:
I assumed they were all equal size.</p>

<p>Assuming these students make up the universe of top elite-LAC-seeking students,
if I were to combine these students into one massive pool / uber-LAC this is what I would find:
Northeasterners make up 47% of these students.
Midwesterners make up 17% of them
Southerners make up 13% of them
Westerners make up 24% of them
for a total of 100%. (note, these are not hugely different from the uni numbers above)</p>

<p>If I compare them to the actual % of the population in each part of the country, I get these indexes:
Northeast 202, Midwest 76, South 39, West 105.
So …same finding - it is true that Northeasterners disproportionately “fill the seats” of the nation’s elite LAC’s. The West is about average and the Midwest and South are below average.</p>

<p>HOWEVER … if I then look at these students and say “who stayed in their home region for their LAC experience” and “who left home region for their LAC experience,” here’s what I find:
71% of Northeasterners stayed in home region for their LAC
46% of Midwesterners stayed in home region for their LAC
32% of Southerners stayed in home region for their LAC
45% of Westerners stayed in home region for their LAC</p>

<p>(These numbers were not appreciably different from the uni numbers above, except the Western % is higher)</p>

<p>In other words, Northeasterners (at least of the elite-LAC-seeking variety) are less likely to travel out of home region for their elite LAC compared to other regions.</p>

<p>The reason that this is, is simply because there are more “elite LAC seats” in the Northeast region to begin with …
52% of “elite LAC seats” are in the Northeast (11 out of the 21 LACs examined)
19% of “elite LAC seats” are in the Midwest
10% of “elite LAC seats” are in the South
19% of “elite LAC seats” are in the West </p>

<p>Do note- I do classify W&L as being in the South here. I’m sorry, I really have no way of putting VA back into the Northeast when it comes to the people; I can change college classification easily because I just simply “decree” what region it fits into, but can’t change my “people origin” classification with the data I have. </p>

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<p>“1. The statistics are interesting, but (of necessity) a bit mushy because of the problem of defining regions. For example, in my opinion Virginia really goes into two regions. The DC suburbs are part of the Northeast (broadly defined), while most of the rest of the state is really in the Southeast (and some of it is REALLY in the Southeast).”</p>

<p>I absolutely, completely agree, and really wish I could do this by metropolitan statistical area. My guess is that bclintonk had to make that judgment call for where to place VA, and erred towards the side of the heavily populated DC suburbs in making his call. I don’t know. Likewise, many states, including my own, are conglomerations of highly urban areas (often spilling into neighboring states) and rural areas. MSA’s would do a better job. It would be interesting to know which MSA’s “oversend” to elite schools, and which schools “receive” the most diverse # of MSA’s. </p>

<p>“2. It would be interesting to know how these figures have changed over time. It would be my prediction that all of the colleges have become more “national” in their enrollment, but I think it is likely to have changed more at schools like Wash U.”</p>

<p>I agree that all of the schools have likely become more national, and agree that merit aid at WashU, Vanderbilt, USC has likely helped.</p>

<p>“3. One reason could be that, to a person in Texas, Rice is just as good as Brown, and is a lot closer to home (and maybe cheaper). (SNIP) To somebody in Rhode Island, on the other hand, it would probably take a lot of convincing to get people to think that Rice was as good as Brown. This is provincialism, in a way, but it’s pretty natural–and it’s part of local pride, as well.”</p>

<p>I think this is the heart of the “struggle” on CC over this issue. It’s one thing for the person in Rhode Island to say, I don’t believe Rice is as good as Brown based on what I hear in my area. OK, fine. It’s another thing when they assert this as national truth, or they don’t understand that Rice gets someone just as far in Texas as Brown gets them in Providence. </p>

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<p>Undergraduate enrollments at private research universities (top 25 per USNEWS):</p>

<p>Princeton: 5323
Harvard: 6722
Yale: 5430
Columbia: 6084
Stanford: 7061
Chicago: 5659
MIT: 4528
Duke: 6646
Penn: 9712
CalTech: 977
Dartmouth: 4276
JHU: 6251
NWU: 8688
WashU: 7336
Cornell: 14393
Brown: 6455
Notre Dame: 8477
Vandy: 6835
Rice: 3965
Emory: 7836
Georgetown: 7636
CMU: 6306
USC: 18445 </p>

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<p>Do you have the data to be able to run the top-ranked publics?</p>

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<p>Hunt, I will add another tidbit in the form of one’s evaluation of future employment. </p>

<p>Take you Texan again, and assume he lives in TPG’s fiefdom. Despite its international purported character, Houston remains a OG heaven. If a student is interested in a career in petroleum engineering, there are few reasons to travel beyond Houston, College Station, or Austin. And if he were to want to get out, chances are that neighboring states offer better opportunities than an East Coast college are great. </p>

<p>I believe that same might be said for people in Northern California in terms of the attraction of Silicon Valley. Perhaps the same for people interested in drama in SoCal. </p>

<p>Further we also know --if one believes the guidance counselors national org-- that people end up attending one of their first two choices by an overwhelming margin. Simply stated most people attend a school that is very close to their roots. </p>

<p>Is there a conclusion to all of this? Data will indicate that schools enroll large numbers of local and regional students. But this means that a particular school with a high number of local or regional students is less ‘national’ than one with a smaller number? Nope. Not at all! </p>

<p>What makes a school ‘national’ is none other than attracting large swaths from around the US (and the world) and enrolling students from every corner of the US. Not some bullcrap index built on shoddy and imprecise foundations. </p>

<p>Common sense and simplistic numbers dictate what schools have a national appeal. The rest is statistical non-sense. </p>

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<p>“I think this is the heart of the ‘struggle’ on CC over this issue. It’s one thing for the person in Rhode Island to say, I don’t believe Rice is as good as Brown based on what I hear in my area. OK, fine. It’s another thing when they assert this as national truth, or they don’t understand that Rice gets someone just as far in Texas as Brown gets them in Providence.”</p>

<p>I think a key to this is where folks want to be after college. I looked at the Crimson’s survey of incoming Harvard freshmen. Of students from the northeast, 70% want to live in the northeast after graduation. Of students from the south, it was 2.6%.</p>

<p>So, admissions (which likely reflect applications) from the south lag. Why? Most folks from the south don’t want to live in the northeast. As simple as that.</p>

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<p>＃268</p>

<p>Undergraduate enrollments at private LACs (top 25 per USNEWS):</p>

<p>Williams: 2077
Amherst: 1785
Swarthmore: 1534
Wellesley: 2474
Bowdoin: 1795
Pomona: 1612
Middlebury: 2495
Carleton: 2045
CMC: 1316
Haverford: 1187
Davidson: 1788
Vassar: 2477
Washington and Lee: 1855
Colby: 1820
Hamilton: 1926
Harvey Mudd: 807
Wesleyan: 2906
Bates: 1791
Grinnell: 1721
Smith: 2606
Colgate: 2890
Oberlin: 2894
Macalester: 2039
Scripps: 990 </p>

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<p>Thanks, PCHope! </p>

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<p>Ynotgo - No, I have no data other than what bclintonk gave. But II would expect the top-ranked publics to be highly regionally skewed - after all, they have an explicit agenda to serve the students / taxpayers of their home state and they’re cheaper for in-state residents. I’m not sure I see the point of confirming that. </p>

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<p>" I looked at the Crimson’s survey of incoming Harvard freshmen. Of students from the northeast, 70% want to live in the northeast after graduation. Of students from the south, it was 2.6%.</p>

<p>So, admissions (which likely reflect applications) from the south lag. Why? Most folks from the south don’t want to live in the northeast. As simple as that."</p>

<p>Interesting. Might this suggest that students think that going to a college in (Region X) means that you’re going to wind up with a job in that region? What would drive that perception – one would think that a “national reach” college would be able to convey “we have strength all over the country (job opps, etc.) – not just in our own backyard.” </p>

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<p>With the re-run numbers (thanks again, PC Hope), this is what I find. The overall stories / patterns don’t change all that much from what I previously provided.</p>

<p>NUMBERS REFLECTING ACTUAL UNDERGRAD POPULATION: </p>

<p>At the elite research uni level:
NE make up 41% of the elite-u-going-students – index of 178 to population
MW make up 16% - index 73
S make up 19% - index 60
W make up 24% - index of 104</p>

<p>So, NE’ers disproportionately “fill the seats” of the nation’s elite u’s relative to their size in the population. </p>

<p>When it comes to staying in home region for an elite research u:
72% of NE stay in home region
47% of MW stay in home region
32% of S stay in home region
44% of W stay in home region </p>

<p>So, NE’s are also least likely to leave their home region.</p>

<p>The elite seats themselves are distributed as follows:
51% of elite seats are in the NE
18% of elite seats are in the MW
13% of elite seats are in the S
18% of elite seats are in the W</p>

<p>The changes were driven mostly by Cornell and USC, which are both appreciably larger than most of the other schools, AND both of which are among the most skewed to their respective home regions. </p>

<hr>

<p>At the elite LAC level:
NE make up 49% of the elite-LAC-going-students – index of 212 to population
MW make up 17% – index 77
S make up 12% - index 39
W make up 22% - index of 95</p>

<p>Same general story.</p>

<p>When it comes to staying in home region for the LAC experience:
73% of NE stay in home region
48% of MW stay in home region
30% of S stay in home region
63% of W stay in home region</p>

<p>The elite LAC seats themselves are distributed as follows:
57% of elite LAC seats are in the NE
21% of elite LAC seats are in the MW
9% of elite LAC seats are in the S (Just Davidson & W&L)
14% of elite LAC seats are in the W</p>

<p>The story is essentially the same as the research u’s. </p>

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<p>PG – I asked because the % of “elite seats” in the W seems artificially lowered by the exclusion of elite publics. Though USC perhaps makes up for it their large enrollment, even though depending on the major, many in CA would not consider USC an elite compared to UCB and UCLA.</p>