<p>Insert 2003 Gallup poll here.</p>
<p>kameronsmith, only a minority of people are familiar with universities. Those who only know an academic powerhouse such as Duke or UNC only for its sports will not know Brown, Columbia, Cornell or Dartmouth at all. And those who do know about Brown, Columbia, Cornell and dartmouth will know about Duke and UNC academics.</p>
<p>“Insert 2003 Gallup poll here.”</p>
<p>Hehe!</p>
<p>Umm, not really. At least not in the Northeast.</p>
<p>kameronsmith, I said that all universities are regional. So naturally, in the NE, Brown would be more recognized than universities of its stature located in other parts of the nation, just as in the Mid Atlantic or Sotheast, Emory or Wake Forest would be very highly regarded. How about in the 80% of the nation that is not part of the NE?</p>
<p>Which also happens to be the region where the vast majority of good jobs can be found.</p>
<p>If you include the Mid Atlantic (MD, DC, VA and NC), then yes. But other areas of the country offer excellent career oppotunities. Texas, Indiana, Minnesota, Illinois, California all have strong job markets (not now of course, but generally speaking). </p>
<p>But the East Coast also happens to be the region with the highest concentration of people and with the most number of elite universities. For example, the midwest has 10 or so elite universities and colleges (Carleton, Chicago, Grinnell, Macalester, Michigan, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Oberlin, UIUC, Wisconsin and WUSTL) with a total undergraduate population of 115,000 students serving a region with a total population of 50 million. The NE and Mid Atlantic have what? 30 elite universities and colleges (Amherst, Bates, Boston College, Bowdoin, Brown, Carnegie Melon, Colby, Colgate, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Davidson, Duke, Georgetown, Hamilton, Harvard, Haverford, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Middlebury, NYU, Penn, Princeton, Smith, Swarthmore, Tufts, UNC, UVa, Vassar, Wake Forest, Washington and Lee, Wellesley, Wesleyan, William and Mary, Williams and Yale) with a total undergraduate population of 175,000 serving a region with a total population of 80 million.</p>
<p>All is relative.</p>
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</p>
<p>Alex -</p>
<p>I’m going have to disagree w/ you here.</p>
<p>There have been a no. of studies which have showed that only a minority follow sports to any significant degree, which is why the time/pages allotted to sports on the local news and local papers have been in decline.</p>
<p>There’s a reason why the media refers to the few sports figures who have become known the greater public at large as “crossover stars.”</p>
<p>Otoh, people who do follow sports tend to be pretty hard core.</p>
<p>kameronsmith,</p>
<p>you are still in HS and you are speaking from a very HS-ish perspective. college is larger than life to you now and you make a big deal out of differences that are really negligible. you will grow out of this; your definition of “good jobs” will likely be different from what you are thinking now.</p>
<p>I very much doubt that. Based on economics, let’s assume that pay is a reliable indicator of the quality of a job. Of the states with the highest incomes, the vast majority are on the coasts—mostly in the northeast. [States</a> of the United States of America by income - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_of_the_United_States_of_America_by_income]States”>List of U.S. states and territories by income - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>The fact is, pretty much all wealth and power is concentrated on the coasts. Midwesterners can’t pretend it’s not true, but in the end you know it is.</p>
<p>^i don’t understand why you’re lurking around the northwestern forum…isn’t it the last place to be if you hate the school so much?</p>
<p>This thread started in the general admissions forum, where I replied. It was subsequently moved, though I continued to receive notifications. Hence, my continued presence. I really could care less about Northwestern—I think it’s better than its critics say it is and worse than its boosters would believe it is.</p>
<p>you forgot to consider the education level. for example, the per capita income in DC is 28,659 but significantly higher % of pepole here got grad degrees. you can’t conclude that if you got a master degree, you won’t be making more in, say, Florida. you may be just very average in DC but you are farther at the curve in FL. you need to take into consideration of who you are competing with and be careful of averages… </p>
<p>not to mention the cost of living in DC is a lot higher. speaking of DC vs FL, the 7000-dollar difference translate to 5000 at most after tax and that’s like $400 a month. the rent difference is way more than 400 per month between DC and FL.</p>
<p>Well I guess that’s kind of the point. I’d rather live in a place where the general populace is better educated and would rather go to the theater than the football game.</p>
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<p>Wow, I’m from Westchester County, and even I find this to be pretentious. My brother in-law is a PhD in Contemporary American Poetry (read: Better educated than you) and is a ravid sports fan, and would rather go to an Ice Hockey or Cardinal’s game than the theater probably 9/10 out of ten.</p>
<p>This is all based on the assumption that you meant "better educated and (therefore) would rather go to the theater than the football game. The two things are completely un-correlated; you’re entitled to prefer both of course, but saying them in one breath like that makes it sound like you’re saying something without saying something, if you catch my drift.</p>
<p>
That’s highly doubtful. Your likelihood of wasting a Sunday in front of the television is inversely proportional to your level of education.</p>
<p>kameronsmith, salaries may be slightly lower in Minnesota and Illinois than in some Eastern and Western states, but so is cost of living. For example, you can purchase an nice home in Chicago for under $1 million. A similar home in NYC or DC would easily cost twice that. I ate at Alinea and Per Se this summer. Critics generally agree that those two restaurants are comparable. I enjoyed both thoroughly, but my meal at Per Se cost me $900 whereas my meal at Alinea cost me $500. I stayed at the Penninsula Hotel on Michigan avenue in Chicago, easily America’s best hotel (certainly better than the Four Seasons in NYC) and it cost half what the Four Seasons in NYC costs. </p>
<p>Furthermore, some areas of Chicago and Detroit are among the wealthiest in the US. </p>
<p>But I still don’t see how any of this matters. I am not Midwestern, so I obviously have nothing personal in this debate. But I thought we were discussing universities, not labor markets and demographics.</p>
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True. Not really sure where we got on this.</p>
<p>I have nothing to add to this discussion. Just understand that the Midwest, while it does have its share of wealthy individuals (and requisite activities), doe not have the same concentration of power, diversity, and wealth that the coasts do.</p>
<p>lol alexandre, how do you live such an extravagant life?</p>
<p>come on man, tell me your secret so i don’t have to blow money on a biomedical engineering degree</p>
<p>
That was just for you? I can see that with a $500 tasting course and a $400 bottle of wine. :)</p>
<p>
Psst…I think he said he works in human resources…but he obviously ain’t your typical human resources rep found at most companies.</p>
<p>
This made me LOL. I think a “nice” home could be had for well under $500k.
But, I’d love to have a place in Winnetka or Lake Forest…or a high rise condo in Chicago.</p>