<p>Found this article interesting even tho my kids have no interest in heading to the Ivies.
Sounds like so much comes down to connections, mostly School Counselors & Admissions Offices.</p>
<p>Ivy</a> League proves elusive for Illinois students - Chicago Tribune</p>
<p>FYI “Corrupt Ivy League” posters</p>
<p>Yea, we get the paper version of the Chicago Tribune. I have a D applying to college this year, so all the articles (Illinois kids going to Mizzou, Chinese kids coming to UIUC, and then the Ivy League is elusive) have just been making the wait for admission results more nerve-wracking. It is front page topic for the Chicago Tribune these days.</p>
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<p>Ah… journalists who only want to tell half the story…</p>
<p>50 states plus a lot of foreign countries… even if we just look at the 50 states. “Equal representation” would be 2% for each state. It appears Illinois is above the standard! And yes I read further where it talked about other states who have a lot more.</p>
<p>But whatever…</p>
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<p>Of course, that only includes matriculants, not acceptances. I’m sure that there are plenty of IL kids who turn down ‘the Ivies’ for their much lower-cost instate option (or even neighboring state, such as Wisconsin).</p>
<p>Plus there are two so-called “top 20” schools in Illinois (NU and UChicago), another just over the border (WashU-StL), plus ND just down the road, plus UMich, UW-Madison … there are a lot of alternatives for high-stat Illinois kids.</p>
<p>Or maybe it’s just us down-to-earth, corn-fed folks aren’t quite as impressed with Ivy covered walls as are our elite friends on the right coast.</p>
<p>Illinois sends more students to the Ivies than any other Midwestern state, and by a wide margin. In 2010, 366 Illinois freshmen enrolled at Ivies, compared to 238 from Ohio (a state with about 90% the population that Illinois has) and 159 from Michigan (with a population 75% the size of Illinois’).</p>
<p>This compares to 2,534 from NY, 1,634 from CA, 1,265 from NJ, 902 from MA, 808 from PA, 495 from CT, 415 from MD, and 362 from VA.</p>
<p>I think this mostly just reflects the fact that the market for higher education, even at the most elite levels, is far more regional and less “national” than is commonly supposed by many on CC.</p>
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<p>That’s probably true, but it’s been changing rapidly, if only because top students now typically apply to 8-12 schools to get a fair shot of getting into at least one of them. Certainly, it’s worked in reverse – acceptance rates for both Northwestern and UChicago have plummeted in half over the last 4-5 years as East Coast families “discovered” alternative elite resources in fly-over country.</p>
<p>I second what annasdad said. My kids didn’t even look seriously at East Coast Schools, although they could have had a good shot to get in - based on them getting into NU. Penn was under consideration, and if my son got turned down by NU ED, he would have finished his Penn and WashU apps. </p>
<p>Something else to consider - My son knew he didn’t need to take any SAT IIs to get into Northwestern, but that they would be required for Penn & MIT. After PSATs, an ACT and 10 AP tests, he realized he had had enough testing, and said screw you Penn & MIT.</p>
<p>One more piece of anecdotal data!</p>
<p>Elite private colleges enrolling the most Illinois freshmen, 2010:</p>
<p>Northwestern 558
Notre Dame 268
Chicago 243
WUSTL 206
Vanderbilt 114
USC 94
Tulane 77
Oberlin 56
Yale 56
Cornell 54
Penn 53
Emory 51
Georgetown 50
Carleton 49
Grinnell 49
Brown 48
Stanford 47
[total 7 Midwest schools: 1,429]
[total 8 Ivies: 366]</p>
<p>Elite private colleges enrolling the most New York freshmen, 2010:</p>
<p>Cornell 1,034
Penn 324
Columbia 301
Colgate 216
Harvard 202
Yale 199
Brown 196
Johns Hopkins 196
Georgetown 183
Dartmouth 166
Northwestern 162
Vassar 158
Wesleyan 158
Tulane 156
Duke 154
Bucknell 149
Carnegie Mellon 147
WUSTL 142
Hamilton 141
[total, 8 Ivies 2,534]</p>
<p>I’d say that’s still a pretty strong regional skew, reflecting both regional preferences in applications and regional preferences in final selection when applicants end up with multiple offers.</p>
<p>bc,</p>
<p>Were any of those New Yorkers enrolled at any of the land contract schools of Cornell? I think they get a nice IS deal, no?</p>
<p>Good question gloworm. Can’t tell from the data, but I assume the Cornell totals include freshmen at Cornell’s contract colleges. It’s a funny hybrid that way, part elite private, part quasi-public, but they all consider themselves Cornellians and Ivy Leaguers.</p>
<p>The settlement above is simply incorrect. Cornell does have 3 land grant colleges out of 7, however the are not semi-state school, and admission there is just as competitive. Cornell is simply the largest land owner in NY State, and it gets a certain tax break from the state, and offers in exchange the lower tuition to the NYS residents.</p>
<p>This makes land grant colleges at Cornell very attractive to the NYS HS graduates with high stats that come from the families with income above $110K, which is no rich by any extend if you live in the counties with a high COL, but do not qualify for FA. </p>
<p>My D is the current Cornell student. The land grant made it possible for her to attend. And that me on that, Cornell DOES NOT name distinction between students based on the college they attend within Cornell. They are all Cornellians.</p>