<p>One thing that has always struck me on CC is how posters will talk about how their school "always sends several kids to ..." (fill in elite school of your choice). Sometimes this is done with an unspoken "and they're supposed to accept x number from my school, or else something is awry." </p>
<p>With the fact that there are 30,000 high schools in the US, it's always struck me as not-realizing-you're-already-born-on-third-base if you're attending a school where multiple kids get into elite schools.</p>
<p>In any case, I saw a statistic that of the 32,772 applications Northwestern received this past year, 6,500 different high schools were represented. Which, of course, tells me that for all the complaining about "how elite schools send mailings out and it's a waste, it breaks junior's heart" - there are still wide, wide swathes of the country where not a single applicant is drummed up. </p>
<p>So, it made me wonder - are there any other colleges for which this info is available?
We can put in table form and people can add on.
I recognize this is imperfect since I can't pull out international apps / international high schools, but it would be interesting to see if there are major differences going on.</p>
<p>School / # of Apps / # of (US) High Schools Represented / Avg # Apps per HS
NU 32,772 / 6,500 / 5.0</p>
<p>No counts of high schools are listed, but the percentage of applicants and admits from first generation backgrounds, low income backgrounds, and low API high schools can be found for the University of California campuses here:</p>
<p>I’m sorry, I have no data to report, but how very interesting! I can’t imagine that colleges would be in such a big rush to publicize this sort of stat, bc it’s easier and more appealing to say that Fantastic U. has students from 46 states, rather than calling attention to the fact that in certain states, their representation is only a pinpoint on the map. I’d love to see a map of application data like that, and I wouldn’t be surprised if schools have them but just don’t feel compelled to share.</p>
<p>I’d have to agree with post #3.
I understand why you used Northwestern as an example but it is not that well known or regarded in some area. You might not want to hear it but for example, “NU” actually implies Northeastern in certain area, and chances are same people would ask if Northwestern is a state school somewhere in Northwest.
UC can be in Ohio or California, UW can be Wyoming or Washington or Wisconsin.
Just categorizing by how many high schools are represented means nothing in the whole picture if you’d think regional pulls.</p>
<p>Fascinating question. I think I agree with #3- we are not likely to come up with much since most schools won’t even give a breakdown of IS/ OOS stats…Doubting they want us to know they had one applicant from Wyoming and accepted him.</p>
<p>I think most people are surprised to find out how little cache’ their favorite top 20 LAC’s or National U’s carry outside of their respective 300 to 500 mile radius. Other than HYPS, even the other Ivy’s drop off dramatically in renown outside of their region.</p>
<p>One time I found the stat in the other direction. I found a site that told percentages of our high school students and where they wound up going in-state. The problem was that any college receiving less than 2% of the mix was just thrown into “other” - so Rice didn’t make the list. Usually we only have a few grads going to Rice. I remember, in general, the way the numbers went.</p>
<p>We have two local community colleges - both very good - where MANY college bound graduates went.</p>
<p>Next was Blinn and/or Texas A&M - These two schools together made up a huge number</p>
<p>Next was University of Texas - Austin</p>
<p>Next was Texas State</p>
<p>Next was Sam Houston State University</p>
<p>Next was U of H</p>
<p>Next was Texas Tech</p>
<p>Next was Texas Christian University</p>
<p>There may have been a few more, but then there was 9% “other” - probably made up primarily of Baylor, Rice, University of North Texas, Lamar, Stephen F. Austin, Southern Methodist, St. Edwards and Dallas Baptist. We’ll usually have one or two going to each of those per year out of a class of about 420.</p>
<p>About 4 or 5 years ago there was a survey done in our district of what colleges the students held in highest regard. I don’t remember the specifics, but it mirrored the Div 1 football rankings at the time, more than any academic reputation/ranking. :p</p>
<p>Hard stats to find, PG. Looked at websites for both my kid’s colleges (Bryn Mawr and Tufts). Neither one has the number of high schools represented amongst admits for the Class of 2017. Both do have % of admits from public, private, etc. Articles on 2013 admissions below. For both schools, admissions were more selective than in previous years. Tufts went below 20% and BMC was 39% (for BMC that was lowest in many years).</p>
<p>I have said many times on this board that reputation, even of the “best” schools, is still highly regional; and I think it’s amusing to hear “even the other Ivies” because from my vantage point, that’s a big duh that Ivy prestige is still more northeast concentrated than elsewhere. That’s not what my post is about! I’m not asking about prestige. I’m asking about the depth of high school representation and what that means when we have the annual whinefest of “schools send too many brochures, boo hoo.” It seems to me that there probably isn’t a school that couldn’t appreciably increase the # of high schools it draws applicants from.</p>
<p>The stat in the other direction would be: What % of each state’s students APPLY to (an individual elite college, or perhaps elite colleges taken together as a whole). Not where they wind up.</p>
<p>I don’t get the correlation you’re trying to make between depth of HS representation and number of brochures sent out? or why there should be one. Are you suggesting that schools should be excused from the perception of misleading kids who otherwise have a very small chance of acceptance, because the college is merely trying to broaden its HS applicant pool?</p>
<p>In our school, the percentage of people that apply to reaches at all is very very low.</p>
<p>Since top 8% can get into UT, and top 10% can get into any other school in the state, and OUT of state can be really really far away. Most people stick to the schools on the list. And of the private ones, I think Rice is the really selective one.</p>
<p>Regarding opinions of Northwestern- post# 4. NorthEASTern is one of those schools never heard of except on CC because of the large numbers of east coast posters. Many of the schools touted by posters are way beneath the acceptable bar for those of us not from their region. Our regional schools aren’t known to you but we’re provincial if we don’t know/care about the xyz schools in your area??? btw- “NU” is not a common acronym here, either- perhaps it is in Chicago.</p>
<p>It’s all a numbers game. I have learned so many of those private schools are just average- same as many publics around my region. Also, with top flagships it is harder to justify looking at so many schools those on the east coast consider.</p>
<p>Amherst gives the number of high schools attended by enrollees (373 schools, for 463 enrollees in the last class reported), but not the number of high schools attended by applicants or by those accepted. It breaks them down by public (239/279)/private(111/157)/parochial(22/26)/home(1/1), too.</p>
<p>Wow. What’s really interesting about that is that 36% of admitted students somehow DIDN’T show up on the search lists that launched Harvard’s outreach program. Even if we assume that a quarter of those (~9%) were internationals (since 11% of the class are internationals, but many of them were probably at school in the US), that still leaves about 550 kids who got admitted to Harvard who didn’t show up on a screen based on test scores. Who the heck are they? (Some may be athletes, I guess, but not that many.)</p>
<p>Many kids don’t take the PSAT. My daughter didn’t, and ended up with a 2200 on the SAT, which she took for the first time in her senior year. She’s nowhere near Harvard material, but her scores probably would have qualified her for Harvard junk mail. (Then again, maybe the Harvard junk mail list would have been a reach). Fortunately or unfortunately, she didn’t get on too many college mailing lists. </p>
<p>(She didn’t take the PSAT because her school doesn’t really encourage kids to take it. Also, she didn’t want to take it unprepared and she didn’t want to prepare for it. I have to assume there are kids out there who really are Harvard material who were in the same boat with respect to the PSAT).</p>