<p>Has nothing to do with beauty contest but pardon me for catching your attention.</p>
<p>The real question is: </p>
<p>what are the reasons New Jersey is so over-populated with serious students who are making a run at serious schools. What is the demograhics of the state?</p>
<p>b/c NJ is teh pwnz0rz</p>
<p>Parents who like space and can afford to commute from Philly and NYC go to NJ. Well-off parents create well-off kids. They pay good taxes towards good schools which produce good students who go to good colleges. Bam.</p>
<p>NJ is densely populated and it's an extremely expensive state to live in, which means that many of the students come from affluent backgrounds, which means they most likely attend good schools and have a lot of opportunities. I think public schools in NJ are pretty good schools, and we've got a lot of good privates too.</p>
<p>Im in nj!!! Though it looks small, there are tons of people here!!! </p>
<p>Its just that there isnt the whole "hicks in sticks" culture in many areas that states with similar populations have. alot of the population is living in suburban, middle class areas. NJ has like the highest avg paycheck etc. Not necessarily rich (though obviously it is in some cases), but alot of upper mid class here, which breeds the good students.</p>
<p>for instance my town is like 12,000 people. Pretty much everyone is upper midclass, a few super rich, but upper mid for the most part. my public highschool of 600 (total) sends 5 kids or so to ivies each year, and 8 more to usnwr top 30s. ( i think thats impressive considering classes are only 150ish).</p>
<p>Also, there really isnt a huge down and out city culture. alot of people in the urban areas are immigrants. (and obviously their kids work hard in school).</p>
<p>Also what you see could just be perception.</p>
<p>we only have one big state school (not much choice considering the popution) which is rutgers, so lots of new jerseyians must seek elsewhere for higher education...and they come here!</p>
<p>I, too, am in NJ. NJ is so densely populated, as was stated, mostly because of its proximity to NYC/Philly. Living here is cheaper than living IN the city, so people who are middle class or upper middle class move out here where they can have things like a lawn or a big house without paying millions of dollars. Pretty much all the adults living here have a college education and a good job, so they expect the same of their kids. While this produces a lot of stuck-up, rich, spoiled, slutty teenagers sometimes, it also produces a good amount of driven students. This creates competition, and so those students get even MORE driven, and... vicious cycle. Also, the public schools are pretty good. And we have a lot of Asians. My town's Asian population has grown significant recently; it's probably about 15-20% of the school now... </p>
<p>My town has about 20,000 people. Out of a senior class of 300, about 10 went to Ivies, another 10-15 to other top 30-ish universities/LACs, maybe 10% to county college, another 30-40% to Rutgers, and the rest... elsewhere. We hardly ever have kids not going to college; it's just not really culturally accepted.</p>
<p>I see. You can actually have a lawn and backyard in NJ. My lasting impression of NJ was made driving from NYC to Princeton. You'd passed some of the most unimpressive urban scenes. Kind of like Fremont,Calif. Fremont is where many silicon valley commuters lived. Are there parts of NJ with different, more interesting scenery and environments ?</p>
<p>NJ, to be honest, isn't all-that interesting to see as a tourist. But its not a bad place to live. The places nearest to the cities (Philly, NYC) usually house the poorest in the state; that is, North and West Jersey. Central and South Jersey tend to hold more affluent people. Those places are where the lawns and more suburban environments are located.</p>
<p>Driving from NYC to Princeton is not going to be a very happy adventure, mainly because the first things you see coming out of the city are the rundown factories which spew that ever-so-homey smell and look curiously like the ones you see underground in Gears of War. Also, there are no good cities in NJ. Go to the townships for 'nice'.</p>
<p>There are really nice places with interesting scenery in New Jersey. For example, the Watchung and Pocono Mountains in Northwest NJ, near the border with PA are beautiful. This is the Delaware Water Gap, and there are really pretty cliffs and gorges and fun stuff like that. I would also check out High Point, which is incidentally the highest point in NJ. The State Park is really beautiful, because you can see much of the upper Delaware Valley, even into PA and NY. </p>
<p>Down in Southern NJ, Cape May and Wildwood have great beaches, and Cape May is just a fun place anyway, far enough away from suburbia and Atlantic City with plenty of old-time Victorian architecture. </p>
<p>Also, don't forget the Pine Barrens! </p>
<p>NYC to Princeton is just like driving from NYC to New Haven or Boston. Its the I-95 corridor for heavens' sake. Lots of factories, lots of urban sprawl, lots of NIMBYs (not in my backyard).</p>
<p>My home area of Hunterdon County is very beautiful. A drive out Route 78 gives you some nice views but you really need to get off on the great backroads throught he small villages and towns--many are New England like in their charm. Also it is now a pretty wealthy area. When I was there it was more farming and lower middle class.
A few pix</p>
<p>I'm in Mercer, 20 mins outside of Princeton, and if you would have driven around the Princeton area, down some of back roads and whatnot, maybe into Hunterdon, even, you would see some gorgeous pieces of land. Its not all Newark and Camden and Elizabeth...</p>
<p>lol is South Jersey that affluent?? I'm from Bergen County/North Jersey and everyone in my school seems to think that South Jersey is like...dirty and full of beggars for some reason. </p>
<p>I know Central is pretty rich...</p>
<p>North has very good schools, but I don't know about the rest of Jersey.</p>
<p>Maybe because there is not many decently known mid-range schools in NJ?</p>
<p>By that I mean Big Ten State schools, U of M, Ohio State, etc.</p>
<p>Sure there are decent schools, but not as many and they're harder to get into. So apply out of state?</p>
<p>Seems right to me...</p>
<p>barrons, is that near north hunterdon? I have a friend that lives there!</p>
<p>NJ, to be honest, isn't all-that interesting to see as a tourist. But its not a bad place to live. The places nearest to the cities (Philly, NYC) usually house the poorest in the state; that is, North and West Jersey.</p>
<p>This is for the large part, true, but there are several amazing school districts up here in the North. The county of Morris in itself is extremely wealthy and nearby Essex has a few nice towns too: Livingston, etc.</p>
<p>We have millburn too, counted as one of the best public high schools in the entire nation.</p>
<p>Yeah, I live in north NJ too and I shared the impression with jovenes; the north always seemed more affluent. I don't go to south Jersey often, but the last time I went I seem to remember passing lots of not-so-nice-looking towns. I know in the north there are a lot of people with HUGE houses and such... in my town they recently built several 8-15,000 square foot homes which are selling for millions of dollars. I mean, I guess RIGHT outside NYC in NJ is maybe not so nice, but even that isn't bad.</p>
<p>Yes, I am a NHRHS graduate. Good school.</p>
<p>I live in the town next to Princeton...full of asians (myself included), extremely competitive, overcrowded, horribly overrepresented at top colleges. but yeah it's a nice place to live.</p>
<p>I was also under the impression that wealth in NJ is greatest in the north and central, and I know my northern NJ town is considerably wealthy with people generally being upper middle/lower upper which sort of makes sense with the idea of many wealthy people who commute but want their family to have the typical American experience with a front lawn, backyard and so forth. And yeah, NJ in general is just crazy competitive.</p>
<p>Yeah, my town's average salary is well over $80,000.</p>
<p>Eeek. The drive from NYC to Princeton isn't much fun. The Princeton area (and surrounding central NJ) is pretty cool, though.</p>