<p>"And yeah, yeah, they’re dumb and poor and deluded by football and all, but still.</p>
<p>PG: that’s more than a little ugly "</p>
<p>alh, it was SARCASTIC. </p>
<p>PG: I understood sarcasm was the intent. It is still ugly. </p>
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<p>For the love of god. What exactly is your agenda, Catalan, other than hijacking a thread that a lot of people (used to) find interesting?</p>
<p>Would you prefer, Sally, that this thread goes back to the enjoyable sports of Ivy and NE bashing instead, based on a flawed statistical analysis?</p>
<p>I never bashed the Ivies in this thread. Never. And I’m from the freaking northeast. </p>
<p>Catalan, no one has been “bashing” the Ivies or the northeast here. And PG has acknowledged the limits of her statistical analysis.</p>
<p>I’m from the freaking northeast too.</p>
<p>Catanlan,</p>
<p>I too am curious about your agenda. PG put some effort into her research. She is a long time poster, with strong opinions, and the ability to recognize her NE and midwest biases. I think those of us who have been regulars on CC for 10+ years have recognized her intent. I personally respect her. Her research on this particular topic of regional preferences was definitely on target, from my experience. I spent 40 years in Ne, a few in Ca, and 20+ years in SE. As a professional in field, I have visited MANY colleges. Who are you?</p>
<p>And once again, it is Caltech (note spelling).</p>
<p>PG:
“Oh yes! Looking at my data, of the 58,000 Ivy undergrad seats, a full 5,780 are taken up by midwesterners and 7,890 by southerners. Don’t have my calculator handy, but that’s roughly 10% and 13% - so 23% of the Ivy bodies come from the midwest and south. That’s not all that impressive when those two regions together account for over 50% of the population.”</p>
<p>Since those numbers are not impressive, what would be? If you can categorically state those numbers are not impressive, then you must have something in mind that is. Since those two regions account for over 50% of the population, should the student bodies be close to that number? Is that something those schools are trying hard to reach, but failing to accomplish?</p>
<p>I can’t speak for Catalan, because this is far from bashing the Ivys, but the mushy thinking behind it seems to reveal some sort of animus.</p>
<p>bookworm, I am just someone who recognizes flawed statistical analysis when I see it. I believe Pizzagirl does recognize it too, as she claims to be trained in statistics. Why she keeps repeating the conclusions of flawed analysis is beyond me, however. Perhaps as a professional in the field you can shed some light on that?</p>
<p>As for regional preference, it is common sense that kids want to stay close to home, and colleges are happy to oblige because of good neighbor policies. It doesn’t take flawed statistical analysis to prove that.</p>
<p>“Catalan, no one has been “bashing” the Ivies or the northeast here. And PG has acknowledged the limits of her statistical analysis.”</p>
<p>I am very relieved to know that. Perhaps we should stop drawing conclusions from the flawed analysis, then?</p>
<p>Surprise that the premier universities in this country are skewed to home region does not equate to animus towards the Ivies, which (as I repeated on this thread) are great schools. </p>
<p>Noting that WashU AND U of Chicago have more national student bodies than Ivies and other elite privates does not equate to animus towards Ivies and other elite schools. </p>
<p>I do bear animus when I see provincialism. We have had posters on this thread who were a) shocked, shocked I tell you, that some city in the Midwest/south was, like, a real live city; b) hypothesize that people in other regions are just fundamentally stupider instead of being clued/in about the power of state flagships outside the easy; and c) get hurt about alleged Ivy-bashing shortly after suggesting “what do I care what people in Missouri think,”. I’m no fan of Missouri, but the people I knew there could buy and sell half this board for lunch, and the dismissive attitude is unsophisticated and provincial. </p>
<p>@Pizzagirl “It’s also interesting to contemplate why WashU became the poster child for bashing when U of Chicago is similarly placed with respect to geo diversity.”</p>
<p>I think that in general U of C has earned a lot more respect in the academic community than WUSTL, so the assertion that U of C is equal to the Ivies receives a lot less pushback than the assertion that WUSTL is the equal of the ivies.</p>
<p>For example, U of C faculty members have won a huge number of Nobel Prizes. I don’t think that a member of the WUSTL faculty has ever won a single Nobel Prize. </p>
<p>MODERATOR’S NOTE:
This discussion is getting off track. I’ve cleaned up some of the off-the-rails comments, but will close the thread if the discussion continues to veer off course.</p>
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<p>I think PG addressed this in her answer to my post above (#619). If she’s interested in what I characterized as “diversity” not what I called “drawing power”, then the geographic distribution of elite-ready kids in the applicant pool does not matter. All that really matters is the relative geographic diversity of enrolled students. </p>
<p>“I think that in general U of C has earned a lot more respect in the academic community than WUSTL, so the assertion that U of C is equal to the Ivies receives a lot less pushback than the assertion that WUSTL is the equal of the ivies.”</p>
<p>But no one ever asserted “WashU is the equal of the Ivies.” We asserted “based in these data, imperfect as they are, WashU and U Of Chicago attract a more nationally rep student body than either their Midwestern private brethren (NU and ND) and the Ivies.” That seemed to tick a lot of people off. </p>
<p>I think what really happened is that people projected. The moment that WashU did something, it automatically became unimportant. Everyone completely skipped over the fact that U of Chicago did the same thing and we were off to the races. </p>
<p>If the data had shown Ivies had a national student body and WashU and U of Chicsgo highly regional one, it would have been framed as even more evidence that WashU was some kind of undeserving parvenu – look, it can only attract Midwesterners! Please! – and some tortured explanation would have been found for U of Chicago. </p>
<p>I’d change the word “attract” to “have”.
For whatever reason, WashU and UChicago wind up with “more nationally representative” student bodies (geographically, that is, and given the geo boundaries you’ve used.) </p>
<p>Fair correction. </p>
<p>@Much2learn said: “For example, U of C faculty members have won a huge number of Nobel Prizes. I don’t think that a member of the WUSTL faculty has ever won a single Nobel Prize.”</p>
<p>Not true. There have been 3 faculty in Chemistry, 1 in Physics, 1 in Economics and 17 in Physiology or Medicine. And, 1 of this year’s Chemistry winners did his undergraduate degree at WashU.</p>
<p>“For all the supposed johnny-come-lately status of WashU, it’s notable that they achieve a more national student body than ANY Ivy.”</p>
<p>“This result is not surprising considering the fact the WashU is almost adjacent to the mean center of the United States population (currently located at Laclede County, Missouri).”</p>
<p>“If one looks at the vector from Laclede County, Missouri to the location of a particular school and compares it to the vector from Laclede County to the mean center of population from the four regions then the results from post #1 can be predicted in most cases.”</p>
<p>The same can be said for the results of post #2.</p>
<p>In other words if one looks at how distant a particular university is from Laclede County, Missouri then one can predict how high the in index is (this would be the magnitude of the vector). If one made a graph of the distance (x axis) vs. the index (y Axis) there would appear to be a strong correlation. The notable exception to this rule is Duke, however if one looks at the vector direction for Duke and compares it to the vector direction for the north (I assume New York city) and the vector direction for the south ( I assume this would be Atlanta) then Duke could be seen as midway between them both. In other words there does not appear to be anything special about WashU except its geographic location.</p>
<p>If WashU and U Chicago’s numbers come out the way they are in Pizzagirl’s model based on their location in reference to the way regions are defined, shouldn’t Northwestern have similar numbers?</p>