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I think people from the east coast are also more likely to travel out of state/region for schooling, considering there are so many good schools in their own region to begin with. As for the foreign-born or those having foreign-born parents, this is a self-select group of people who were adventurous enough to start a life in a foreign country. I suppose compared with that adventure, going off to a different area of the country for school is not a big deal at all.</p>
<p>It might very well be exactly the opposite - people from the east coast are less likely to travel out of region (again, you can’t look at out-of-state - it’s not “adventurous” to go from RI to MA) precisely BECAUSE they have so many more options within a short distance. And for those desiring to attend elite colleges, it’s possible that those in the east coast travel LESS of a distance than those in the midwest and south because their options are right there.</p>
<p>But anyway, none of the data bclintonk has provided sheds any light on that hypothesis whatsoever. You’d need a database that showed ALL students within a given region, not just those attending a handful of schools that together account for a minute proportion of all college students. One thing is absolutely for sure though - the Ivies compete in a more regional market than previously thought.</p>
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<p>My knowledge of this is far from systematic, but from the people I have seen the effect is often almost exactly the opposite. Many families have gone through great trauma in connection with coming here – wars, persecution, hardship in their former homes, economic struggles, separation from extended family support systems and friends, downgraded careers here. It’s often very difficult for parents to let their children go far away, and difficult for the children to break up what family group they have left.</p>
<p>My great-grandfather came here at 15 with one of his brothers, who only lasted a few years before going back to the old country. He was unusual in that he sent all of his children (including his daughters) to what were then seen as distant colleges – he himself had gone to school only through age 12 – but his first four children all returned home and spent much of their adult lives living on the same block where he lived. Only the two youngest children didn’t return to their home city.</p>
<p>noimagination:</p>
<p>your link supports my mobility hypothesis – only 50% of California residents were born there – i.e., have lineage ties. Contrast that number with the 70%+ in Alabama and Mississippi. When daddy went to the school and it is free/near free, it’s hard to look elsewhere. </p>
<p>Those are total numbers, which includes infant residents. When looking at the parent cohort – (age 45-54), a third of West parents were born in their current state. Contrast that with the NE, in which 56% of parents were born in the state, or midwest with a 66%, or 2x that of the west region. (The westerners are just more mobile. Sure, perhaps still prestige-hounds, but maybe mobility is key?) (TBF: only 46% of southerner parents remain in thier state of birth.)</p>
<p>The international hypothesis is also supported, since over a quarter of California’s residents were born outside the country.</p>
<p>Even NY is 60%+.</p>
<p>You can’t compare large states to small ones, though. The person who moves from MA to RI isn’t “more mobile” than the person who moves from Northern CA to Soithern CA. The second person may have moved a lot farther. But the first gets credit for jumping a state border and the second doesn’t. The metric would need to be either at the region level or at the number of miles level.</p>
<p>more (football) reasons to stay instate (Alabama):</p>
<p>[University</a> of South Alabama](<a href=“http://usajaguars.com/index.aspx?tab=football&path=football]University”>Football - University of South Alabama Athletics)</p>
<p>:)</p>
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How are CO, GA, NC, WA represented at the Ivies?</p>
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<p>I think there’s a lot of truth to this. The two largest recent immigrant communities we have in Minneapolis-Saint Paul right now are Hmong (an ethnic minority from Southeast Asia) and Somalis. Both groups have suffered tremendously through war, political upheaval, political and religious persecution, etc. The communities are pretty insular–they stick close together, and they stick close to home. Their sons and daughters are only partially assimilated. The parents are not about to let their sons and daughters wander off to distant parts of the United States without an ethnic and cultural support community. They’re only now beginning to trickle into our local public institutions of higher education. I would guess they are among the least likely Minnesotans to head out of state or out of the region for higher education.</p>
<p>For those who came here under less traumatic circumstances or with stronger national support networks, it may be an entirely different story.</p>
<p>The Southeast region is underrepresented in every single Ivy. The West is a bit below average (but driven by CA) for some Ivies and well below average for the rest of the Ivies. </p>
<p>Of course this analysis is based on % of the pop. Not % of applicants. It is possible that a given state is both underrepresented in terms of the population but over represented in terms of the applicant pool. For example, a state could be 5% of the US population, 2% of the applicant pool but 6% of those accepted. So few kids from that state apply, but they do very well.</p>
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<p>Does this mean that the local Hmong and Somali populations tend to strongly favor University of Minnesota - Twin Cities for its qualifying college-age population, more so than other ethnic groups?</p>
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<p>Hard to answer that. I don’t have data. My sense is that our local Hmong and Somali students are just starting to show up in significant numbers at UMN-TC, but that their college participation rates remain well below the statewide average. I suspect many are attending local community colleges and Metro State, a non-selective public university in Saint Paul, part of the MNSCU system. I don’t think many leave the Twin Cities metro for any college, public or private, and I don’t think the private colleges in the Twin Cities draw many applicants or enroll many students from these communities. So my guess is UMN-TC will probably become the college of choice for many in these communities, at least as a transitional matter. But we’re not there yet.</p>
<p>As compared to “other ethnic groups”? Again, hard to say. Most ethnic groups here are pretty assimilated and don’t necessarily act as distinct communities, except perhaps for religious affiliations and certain kinds of holiday and festival celebrations. The other major exception would be Latinos, but they’re a mixed bag. Some have been here for several generations, others are more recent immigrants, with or without documentation. The latter group come in part from Mexico, in part from Central America, in part from certain parts of South America, but relatively few from the Caribbean. My sense is that, while circumstances vary, on the whole these folks don’t have high college participation rates, and so it’s hard to say they favor UMN-TC over other schools.</p>
<p>With few exceptions, top Northeastern LACs appear to be as regional as top research universities, if not more so. Figures are for 2010 freshman class as reported to U.S. Dept. of Education.</p>
<p>NORTHEAST: These LACs draw heavily from their home region, some to extremes. California is also well represented at some, but not those in the most northerly climes (Middlebury, Bowdoin, Hamilton, Colgate).</p>
<p>Williams: Northeast 57.1%, Midwest 11.7%, Southeast 11.1%, West 20% (California 14%)
Amherst: Northeast 46%, Midwest 12.1%, Southeast 13.7%, West 17.8% (California 13%)
Swarthmore: Northeast 61.8% Midwest 8.5%, Southeast 10.2%, West 19.5% (California 11.4%)
Middlebury: Northeast 63.9%, Midwest 9.4%, Southeast 10.4%, West 16.3% (California 8.4%)
Wellesley: Northeast 48.9%, Midwest 15.5%, Southeast 13%, West 22.6% (California 15%)
Bowdoin: Northeast 67.3%, Midwest 10%, Southeast 9.6%, West 13.1% (California 7.7%)
Haverford: Northeast 62.6%, Midwest 7.8%, Southeast 8.1%, West 14.1% (California 8.1%)
Wesleyan: Northeast 62.4%, Midwest 10.5%, Southeast 7.8%, West 19.2% (California 13.9%)
Vassar: Northeast 62.6% Midwest 8.3%, Southeast 7.8%, West 21.3% (California 14.9%)
Hamilton: Northeast 76.3%, Midwest 9.6%, Southeast 6.7%, West 7.4% (California 4.7%)
Colgate: Northeast 73.1%, Midwest 9.5%, Southeast 6.1%, West 11.3% (California 6.8%)</p>
<p>MIDWEST: These schools show more balance between Northeast, Midwest, and West, but the Southeast is only lightly represented. Oberlin is more a Northeastern school than a Midwestern one.</p>
<p>Carleton: Northeast 23.7%, Midwest 44.7%, Southeast 9.4%, West 22.2% (California 10.5%)
Grinnell: Northeast 19.8%, Midwest 49.7%, Southeast 8.4%, West 22.1% (California 11.9%)
Oberlin: Northeast 46.8%, Midwest 23.8%, Southeast 12.1%, West 17.3% (California 11.2%)
Macalester: Northeast 25.3%, Midwest 45.1%, Southeast 8.7%, West 21% (California 8.9%)</p>
<p>SOUTHEAST: Like Duke, these are really “Eastern Seaboard” schools, drawing from up and down the Atlantic Coast, but not so much from the interior South. </p>
<p>Davidson: Northeast 35.5%, Midwest 9%, Southeast 47.8%, West 7.9% (California 4.6%)
Washington & Lee: Northeast 47.3%, Midwest 10.4%, Southeast 36.9%, West 5.3% (California 3.1%)</p>
<p>WEST: Pomona, Harvey Mudd, and Colorado College draw well from the Northeast, with the Midwest also fairly well represented at Pomona and CC. Claremont McKenna is heavily regional.</p>
<p>Pomona: Northeast 20.9%, Midwest 18.6%, Southeast 9.6%, West 51.9% (California 33%)
Claremont McKenna: Northeast 12.5%, Midwest 9.1%, Southeast 7.2%, West 71.3% (California 47.9%)
Harvey Mudd: Northeast 20.6%, Midwest 11.1%, Southeast 7.8%,West 60.6% (California 42.8%)
Colorado College: Northeast 27.9%, Midwest 17.3%, Southeast 10.6%, West 44.2% (California 10.8%)</p>
<p>It would be easy to misconstrue the figures I presented in post #352 to mean that Northeasterners are more willing than Midwesterners or Southerners to go out of region to attend a top college. That’s an erroneous reading of the data, based on an optical illusion.</p>
<p>Consider this: of the US News 25 most highly ranked private research universities, 13 are in the Northeast, 4 are in the Midwest, 5 are in the Southeast, and 3 are in the West. If a Midwesterner is willing to go to the Northeast to attend a top 25 private research university, he potentially has 13 to choose from. If a Northeasterner is willing to go the Midwest to attend a top 25 private research university, she has only 4 to choose from. Although the 2010 freshman classes at the 4 Midwestern schools held higher percentages of Northeasterners than the Northeastern schools held of Midwesterners, there were actually more Midwesterners in the freshman classes at the 13 Northeastern schools (1,876) than there were Northeasterners in the freshman classes at the 4 Midwestern schools (1,806). The Midwesterners were just spread out across a larger number of out-of-region schools.</p>
<p>A similar dynamic is at play with LACs, where 19 of the 32 top-ranked LACs (excluding service academies) are in the Northeast. Another 5 are in the Midwest, 3 in the Southeast, and 5 in the West. I don’t have time to crunch the numbers, but it is almost certainly the case that there are more Midwesterners attending top Northeastern LACs than there are Northeasterners attending top Midwestern LACs, even though the Northeasterners show up in higher percentages in the entering classes at Midwestern LACs.</p>
<p>And of course, as Pizzagirl has pointed out, this tells us nothing about inter-regional college migration patterns further down the food chain.</p>
<p>bclintonk, that phenomenon is probably just relegated to the Hmong. I come from a city in California known for its huge Indian, Vietnamese, Korean, and Chinese populations. Of the students that went OOS to the top 25 universities, almost all were the children of immigrants. However this might have something to do with the parent’s level of education. A good percent of them held college degrees from countries where rankings very clearly delineate which schools are the best and which ones are inferior. I wouldn’t be surprised if they carried their assumptions about college rankings to America and were thus more willing to let their children go to what they perceived to be the best universities based on the rankings.</p>
<p>It’s also worth remembering that California is a big state and given the high percent of Asian students at even some of the remote UCs (Davis, Santa Cruz), many immigrant parents are fine with allowing their kids to go to “good” schools even if it means they won’t see them as often. </p>
<p>Random observation: My former boss, an immigrant engineering professor, wouldn’t let her child apply to Harvey Mudd because she hadn’t heard of it and it wasn’t ranked as one of the best universities. On the other hand, she forced her child to apply to some of the Ivies, Cal Tech, some of the better Canadian schools (dual citizen), and three of the top UCs since she recognized those names.</p>
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<p>Thank you. I’ve sent you the spreadsheet back and it’s delightful to find someone who can play with the data like this :-)</p>
<p>Other observations:
Of the elite schools (both uni and LAC) that bclintonk provided data on,
there are 13 schools that are not NE based that are well developed in the NE: Chicago, WUSTL, NU, NDame, Duke, Vbilt, Emory … Carleton, Oberlin, Macalester, Dvdson, W&Lee, Col College.<br>
But there are no schools that are not Midwest based that are well developed in the Midwest. Nor are there any schools that are not West based that are well developed in the West. And only one school that is not SE-based is well developed in the SE (Rice).</p>
<p>Which further indicates that it appears that the non-NE schools have been more successful in making inroads in the NE, than the NE schools have been in making inroads to the rest of the country.</p>
<p>Is Rice really the SE? I think of Houston as the west!</p>
<p>No, it’s not the SE - which was my point above - it is a school that is NOT SE-based but it is well developed in the SE.
Its indexes are: Northeast 74, Midwest 32, Southeast 176, West (home) 63. </p>
<p>It’s one of only a handful of schools that don’t have their highest index in their home region.
Duke is another, with indexes Northeast 178, Midwest 37, Southeast (home) 92 and West 61.</p>
<p>I think mathmom’s point about Rice is that some of these regions are kind of arbitrary. Is Texas really the “Southeast?” Not in my book, as a Virginian. Is Maryland in the Northeast or the Southeast? I think if you look at individual states, the picture is a bit different. I was looking at that website that shows how many people from different states are at colleges–and it seems to me that students from states with really large cities are more likely to go OOS to selective schools. This is based on an impression, so somebody can certainly contradict it, but it makes sense to me–large cities and their suburbs are (in my opinion) more likely to produce the kinds of applicant resumes that will get into top schools, and more students who will want to go there.</p>
<p>[qutoe]As has been said over and over and over again, a lot of the big state flagships in the Midwest are considered top schools. There is not the big “step down” between Elite schools and state schools as there is in the East Coast. No one thinks twice about the valedictorian choosing U Mich, U Wisconsin, U of I the way there is in the east with the valedictorian choosing, say, Penn State or U Mass.
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On top of that, given how “prestige aware” the Northesterners are, no wonder the Eastern school are having a hard time making inroads there!</p>
<p>The Census Bureau places Texas (and Oklahoma) in the Southeast (actually, they call it the South region). That’s why Rice skews so heavily Southeastern; over half their freshman class is from Texas.</p>
<p>Yes, the regions are arbitrary, and there will always be states on the boundaries that could go either way. The northern Virginia suburbs of DC are arguably more Northeastern than Southern, but the rest of Virginia is pretty Southern. The Great Lakes industrial states are more like Western Pennsylvania and upstate New York than they are like the Great Plains states (Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas), yet they get lumped together in the Midwest.</p>
<p>Despite such boundary problems, the regions have some value, and there are regional differences. And it’s not just “big city v. small town.” There are plenty of big cities in the Midwest, at least in the Great Lakes portion of the Midwest, but others as well. But the reality is that far more Midwestern top students are perfectly happy to attend their state flagships. Just compare the entering class stats at Rutgers with those of Michigan. They have similarly sized entering classes and are roughly similarly sized states, but the 75th percentile SAT CR+M score at Rutgers is right about where the 50th percentile score is at Michigan. It’s as if the entire top quartile of the class is missing at Rutgers. And it’s not much of an exaggeration to say that it is, because top students in New Jersey by and large are determined to attend the best private school they can get into. That’s just not the same in Michigan. Sure, some will attend Ivies or other top privates, but a very large fraction of the very best students in the state will be very happy to be admitted to the University of Michigan because it’s their number one choice. And why not? It’s a great school, and they’ll have tremendous educational opportunities at an affordable price. And it’s not as is they’re “not mobile” or lack imagination or are somehow afraid to leave the state. If I’m not mistaken, a majority of Michigan grads now do leave the state. For those who want to leave, the university is their most cost-effective ticket out.</p>
<p>It’s just a different culture.</p>