<p>I have done some quick and dirty, back of the envelope calculations here. I don’t have time nor inclination to do an exhaustive study. But I don’t have to. I’m not making the assertion. I’m merely casting doubt on the assertion that’s been made.</p>
<p>I’m not even saying that in the final analysis, the assertion couldn’t be proved true. I’m not betting on it, my gut tells me it’s not so, I’m not sure anyone’s even come up with a worthwhile objective measure of “national” school. I’m merely saying that this “analysis” doesn’t offer much by way of proof of the assertion.</p>
<p>If the assertion is “all swans are white,” the data required to prove that is much greater than the data needed to disprove it. To prove it absolutely, one would need to see the color of every swan. To show it to be a convincing theory, one would need mountains of data. To disprove it, you just need one black swan.</p>
<p>“But your thesis is pretty shallow if it doesn’t take into account these sorts of issues. Not only is some of the data just handled improperly, but there’s so much data that’s not here and thus not considered. At this point, it’s a cute statistic, but without the appropriate context, it’s not much more. It’s certainly not enough information to make judgments about which schools are truly “national” and which are not.” </p>
<p>Do you think I’m stupid? No, really. Do you? </p>
<p>You don’t think I’d love to have things I’ve mentioned here - applicant data (vs enrolled, which is impacted by yield), applicant quality per region, data cut by MSAs versus the 4 census regions, data cut by ethnicities, data cut by socioeconomic status of the student, data cut by “elite-worthy” students (however that gets defined, say test scores above a threshold), and some way to tease out impact of financial aid? I never said this was the be-all-end-all. I said it was data that I got from another poster and tumbled as best I could with the limitations of what I had. This isn’t my senior thesis or a PHD dissertation. I know these things would shed further insight. </p>
<p>I was being facetious about Harvard failing it’s mission, but it became clear I was dealing with the no humor people and I just gave up. Good luck with the “peer review” of your fun little exercise, </p>
<p>“Do you think I’m stupid? No, really. Do you?”</p>
<p>I think your hypothesis is not really supported by the data you present, in part because of the flaws in the data itself, and in part because of the paucity of data. It’s an interesting data set, but it doesn’t support much weight by way of any sorts of inferential conclusions.</p>
<p>Pizagirl, Why are you surprised then when your analysis is called flawed? You yourself know that it is flawed because you don’t have all the facts.</p>
<p>“It gets frustrating to respond to people who won’t consider a school like WashU over, say, Penn because “WashU is so midwestern”–when in fact WashU is one of the most “national” of all elite universities–more than any Ivy.”</p>
<p>I attempted to explain why people may find WashU to be midwestern - because, after all - it is in the midwest. I also was surprised that someone may find that frustrating, as it is just someone expressing their choice. College is all about fit, and if someone is not going to be happy in the midwest (or the northeast, or the west coast, or the moon), then they most definitely shouldn’t go there. Expression of that in my opinion shouldn’t lead to any frustration on part of anyone."</p>
<p>I think 2 things are being conflated. Sally was expressing frustration that people mistakenly thought of WashU’s student body as being overly Midwestern (and this wanting to stay away because of that), not that she was denying that WashU is (obviously) in the Midwest. </p>
<p>If someone doesn’t want to apply to WashU because they don’t care for St Louis - hey, no harm no foul. So be it. I’ve lived there and I ain’t going back
If someone doesn’t want to apply to WashU because they <em>mistakenly</em> think that “it’s overwhelmingly a midwestern student body, unlike those NE schools which attract a nationally representative student body” – that IS a mistruth. Why shouldn’t that be corrected? That’s not trying to “upsell” WashU, portray it as the very best school in the nation, or portray it as something it’s not. </p>
<p>“If someone doesn’t want to apply to WashU because they <em>mistakenly</em> think that “it’s overwhelmingly a midwestern student body, unlike those NE schools which attract a nationally representative student body” – that IS a mistruth. Why shouldn’t that be corrected? That’s not trying to “upsell” WashU, portray it as the very best school in the nation, or portray it as something it’s not.”</p>
<p>What if someone doesn’t want to apply to WashU because they <em>correctly</em> think that WashU has a far high proportion of students from the midwest than an NE school (or a west coast school, or a school in St. Louis, France), and that’s what they mean when they say WashU is too midwestern for them? </p>
<p>I believe the current definition the top schools want to use is Global universities. National is so passe. Columbia enrolled 19% internationals which is unbelievable.</p>
<p>Internationals pay full tuition and schools need money. But I believe Pizzagirl and Poetgrl wouldn’t conider Columbia to be properly international till that number climbs to 95%. :-)</p>
<p>Save and except that the dispelling is missing its mark by a mile and a half, is utterly unconvincing, and that the myth about which schools have a true national reach happens to be true. You still might appreciate it and one out of three ain’t that bad for this particular exercise. </p>
<p>And the classification of Stanford and WUSTL, according to your chosen criteria, exemplified the silliness of the results. Perhaps not relying on questionable data might have saved some of it, but that was clearly the case here. Just think that students of Nashville who attend WUSTL are supporting the illusory notion of a national reach! How many miles separate both cities? All the while a student from Miami or Atlanta attending Rice supports the regional index! </p>
<p>Every once in a while I check back in here to see what’s up. Then after a day or two or three of interest I remember why I went away to begin with. </p>
<p>Carry on with the nastiness. I shouldn’t be wasting my time here and appreciate the reminder. </p>
