<p>I’ve often thought that this is the REAL crux of the issue. Residents in Michigan (and California and Virginia and…) have chosen to build world-class “great schools”, whereas the highest ranked public in the NE is down with the bottom-dwelling UC’s. </p>
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<p>IMO, its different instate opportunities.</p>
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<p>Perhaps, but would they be so “prestige-aware” if they had highly ranked instate options nearby? All the top schools in the NE are private. (Except for the contract colleges in Ithaca.)</p>
<p>Or perhaps encouraged (or in more extreme cases, pushed heavily for) their kids to go to wherever they thought the school prestige was…</p>
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<p>Davis and Santa Cruz are not really that remote. Davis is about a one to two hour drive from San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose (comparable to the distance between Santa Barbara or Riverside and Los Angeles), and about 20 minutes from Sacramento. Santa Cruz is less than an hour drive to San Jose. Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara are the UCs with the lowest percentage of Asian American undergraduates (21%).</p>
<p>Merced is the most remote UC from major population centers (an hour from Fresno, two hours from Sacramento or Oakland).</p>
<p>Cal Poly SLO is probably the most remote of “more prestigious” state universities in California, although it is a CSU, not a UC. It also has an unusually low percentage of Asian American undergraduates (11%). Some less prestigious CSUs like Bakersfield, Chico, and Stanislaus may be considered relatively remote.</p>
<p>Back when I lived in DC people liked to say it had “southern efficiency and northern hospitality”. Yeah, I misread the Rice post, but as I got to thinking about it - there is a lot of overlap in culture.</p>
<p>Part of this may be because college rankings and prestige are typically based on admissions selectivity – i.e. the worst students at any given college. California has 32 state universities, so that the college bound student population tends to sort itself into relatively narrow bands (based on high school academic credentials) at the various state universities. The result is that the worst students at many of the UCs tend to be better than the worst students at flagships in states where there are fewer state universities.</p>
<p>Although flagships which take wider ranges of college bound students from their states (e.g. Alabama, Arizona (State), Rutgers, Massachusetts) also have top students and opportunities for them, the presence of worse worst students hurts their rankings and prestige (many top students do not want to go to a school that “anyone can get into”).</p>
<p>Well some of the state flagships in Midwest may be ranked higher than those in the east, but they are still the minority and ranked far behind the ivies and other big name private. I think at least partially it’s still a cultural difference. I also agree with some posters who mentioned the existence of metropolitan areas and wealth distribution across and within states play a big role too.</p>
<p>sure it could be a factor, UCB, but the number of Nobels, MacArthur Genius grants, and other items that really provide the college with prestige, has nothing to do with the bottom quartile of the students.</p>
<p>Regardless, my point remains: New York could have built a flagship SUNY campus, by pumping a lot of resources into it, but chose not to (for all kinds of financial and political reasons). Other states could raise the admissions bar to their main state Uni, but choose not to (for all kinds of political and financial reasons).</p>
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<p>I tried to address this earlier with my comment about economics – these two are essentially free for high stat students. (The UCs are not.)</p>
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<p>No doubt, but part of the reason that such a ‘culture’ exists is that there is no “good” instate alternative. Thus, for many NE’ers, it becomes top private or bust.</p>
<p>While it may be true that those in California and the NE are prestige-hounds, but one just cannot make that claim absent other mitigating factors, which encourage one to choose to attend the Ancient Eight.</p>
<p>For example, one can attend a NE private for $25k more than the price of a UC. But it would be $60k more than the price of attendance at 'Zona or 'Bama. Huge difference in the value prop.</p>
<p>This is a fascinating thread–kudos to bclintonk and Pizzagirl for their excellent analyses. The regionalism of even the most “elite” schools is something people don’t want to accept for some reason, but it is pretty undeniable. It definitely perpetuates the coastal provincialism that one often encounters on this site and, for some of us, in real life.</p>
The regionalism was actually less than I expected, excluding CA’s per capita representation in Northeast selective schools. More typical, less selective schools generally show a far greater degree of regionalism. For example, some numbers for “Institute of Technology” colleges with varying degrees of selectivity are listed below (based on 2010):</p>
<p>Massachusetts Institute of Technology – 10% acceptance rate, #6 USNWR
16% CA, 11% MA, 9% NY, 8% TX, 5% FL, 5% MD, 5% IL, 4% NJ, 4% VA, 3% PA, 3% MI, …</p>
<p>Stephen’s Institute of Technology – 42% acceptance rate, #75 USNWR
66% from NJ, 15% from NY, 9% from rest of northeast, 10% from outside of northeast</p>
<p>Illinois Institute of Technology – 63% acceptance rate, #113 USWR
73% from Illinois, 13% rest of midwest, 4% from CA, 11% from outside of midwest and CA </p>
<p>New York Institute of Technology (Old Westbury) – 69% acceptance rate, not ranked as national
89% from NY, 6% from NJ, 3% from rest of northeast, 2% from outside of northeast</p>
<p>Well, yes, of course. That will come as a surprise to no one. The point is, however, that despite the claims of some elite schools to be “national” rather than regional in appeal, even the very best of them are still quite regional.</p>
<p>Here are the figures I have:</p>
<p>MIT: Northeast* 41.4%, Midwest 15.9%, Southeast 20.7%, West 21.9% (of which CA 16.2%)</p>
<p>Caltech: Northeast* 23.4%, Midwest 16.2%, Southeast 13.5%, West 39.6% (of which CA 31.1%).</p>
<p>Now there’a an obvious regional tilt here. Both MIT in the Northeast and Caltech in the West draw on their home regions at a rate nearly double those regions’ weight in the national population. What is perhaps more surprising is that the West is relatively well represented at MIT–or at least, California is well represented, at a rate exceeding its weight in the national population. And the Northeast is relatively well represented at Caltech. That makes these schools somewhat less regional than the Ivies, but only somewhat.</p>
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<li>I’m including the entire Boston-Washington corridor in the Northeast, including DC, MD, DE, and VA, all of which the Census Bureau places in the South. Virginia’s problematic because the northern Virginia suburbs are more like the Northeast and most of the rest of Virginia probably belongs in the South, but my guess is most Virginians attending schools like MIT or Caltech come from the DC suburbs, so I include it in the Northeast. That pushes the Northeast’s share of the nation’s population up to about 23%.</li>
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<p>And since there is no a priori reason to believe that they “favor” students from certain parts of the country, the lopsided profiles reflect the lopsided applicant pools. Which gets back to – the appeal of the Ivies is more regional in nature than national in nature, since it draws a VERY disproportionately Northeast applicant pool. Which is reflective of the fact that “Ivy magic” is disproportionately Northeast in nature. (And, of course, the same for all other elite schools, though it’s of note that Chicago, NU, WUSTL, etc. have a better, more representative representation in their pool. IOW, they do a better job of outreach beyond home region than the Ivies do beyond their home region.) </p>
<p>None of this is surprising to anyone who has traveled or lived outside the east. I don’t think some on here truly get that the upper-middle-class professional lifestyle in suburban Chicago or suburban St. Louis or suburban Minnneapolis is pretty much the same darn thing as the similar lifestyle in suburban NY or Boston or Philly or Baltimore.</p>
<p>Aside from the overrepresentation of some particular states outside of region, such as CA and MD, the results do not surprise me. While highly selective schools are national, applying students are more likely to favor a school that is within driving distance over one that is thousands of miles away unless the school that is thousands of miles away offers something important to the student that cannot be found at the closer school. I know many on this site consider going to a school in the ivy athletic conference this type of important detail. But a lot of top students do not see it the way, particular those outside of the northeast. Many in the west would emphasize applying to Stanford, Caltech, the UC system, or the Claremont Colleges instead of ivies. Many in the southeast favor Duke or UVA. Many in the midwest favor Chicago, Northwestern, or Michigan.</p>
<p>The best students are more likely to attend a distant college, and the number of top-notch students varies greatly by state, in a way that is related to but distinct from the average academic achievement by state. The National Merit PSAT qualifying score varies greatly by state, in order for each state to have the same percentage of test-takers qualify (I think). See [National</a> Merit Scores | National Merit Qualifying Scores](<a href=“http://www.studypoint.com/ed/national-merit-scores/]National”>National Merit Scores) .</p>
<p>The states with the highest qualifying scores are
221 Massachusetts
221 Washington D.C.
221 New Jersey
220 California</p>
<p>Have the mobility analyses in this thread accounted for differing frequencies by state of high-end scores?</p>
<p>No, they haven’t. (I’ll waive over the fact that PSAT/SAT scores are not the sole means of qualification to elite colleges, of course, despite the numbers-nerds who wish they were.) They assumed qualifications were evenly distributed among the states / applicant pool and they assumed there was no reason for a college to disproportionately favor applicants of one region over another, and presumed that the discrepancy is due to the disproportionate regional nature of the applicant pool.</p>
<p>Hardly. Ever heard of a bimodal distribution? :rolleyes:</p>
<p>My home state of California, for example, has a lot of non-college bound students who can barely blow their noses, much less be able to complete the bubbles on the psat registration form. While there is no doubt a local contingent of test-happy families – who prep long and hard – there are many, many more Californians who can barely pass HS.</p>
<p>It looks like elite colleges are trying to diversify their student body geographically but are only willing or able to go so far. One of the reasons is that there are just too many highly qualified applicants in their own state and own region who so want to be in. All sorts of connections including their alumni and other types of hard-to-turn-down’s are concentrated in the east too. California is doing well in Ivies, but other parts of country not so much. Apparently only some of the best students from other areas would even try, and that’s just the reality. It seems though, the reality works out just fine. Elite colleges are still enjoying their ‘highly desirable’ status, and people from other parts of country who don’t give a **** to them are living a good life too. I see this thread went off topic a long time ago, and still keeps running off the track. :)</p>
<p>Then let’s not even pretend there is a national market. But then I don’t want to hear nonsense like “Dartmouth attracts a national student body, whereas WashU is only for Midwesterners” (or something of the sort) when the Ivies are more regional in their home region than WashU is in its home region. </p>
<p>Benley, the elite colleges in the Midwest do a far better job of diversifying their student body geographically than the elite colleges in the NE do. Why do you suppose they are better at this?</p>
<p>I have no idea, pizzagirl. As the representative of the Old East, I am defeated! From now on, I will downgrade Ivy League to the East Coast Ivy League. How about that? ;)</p>
<p>Never fear, Benley. I’m still an east coast girl by birth and upbringing, and I say “wooder” like a true Philadelphian and will do so til the day I die!</p>
<p>But you will still hear it. As long as the provincialism of the coasts (and the disdain for “flyover country”) remains, you will hear it–at least on this site.</p>