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<p>I don’t think it’s so odd. The reality is that roughly 50% of the students at the most selective private colleges and universities come from the top 3% or so in wealth and/or income. These are kids who are trained, drilled, and prepped from pre-school on to compete for those coveted places, and who are brought up with those expectations. Most of the remaining 97% need to stumble their way into it and find themselves competitive for the remaining 50% of places only if they’re exceptionally good and exceptionally lucky. And even then they may not recognize how competitive they are, and they might not understand the advantages that might fall to them if they elect to compete on that plane and succeed. There’s just a huge cultural and informational gulf, and an equally huge gulf in opportunities to build and polish the resume that will merit notice.</p>
<p>Given all that, it shouldn’t be surprising that the most affluent states send the most kids to elite private colleges. And what are the most affluent states? Well, the top of the list is dominated by Northeastern states, plus California. As measured by median household income, the most affluent (according to 2011 Census Bureau figures) include #1 Maryland, #3 New Jersey, #4 Connecticut, #5 Massachusetts, #6 New Hampshire, #7 Virginia, #9 Delaware, #10 California, #16 New York, #17 Rhode Island, and #23 Vermont–all big producers of matriculants at elite private schools. And median household income may not be the best metric, because it understates the large concentrations of wealth in places like New York and California, where the medians are dragged down by large numbers of poor people. </p>
<p>Pennsylvania ranks #23 in median household income, well below the norm for the Northeast. Maine is the only Northeastern state with a lower median household income, and Maine sends even fewer students to elite private colleges. </p>
<p>In a world of perfect information, it would make sense for top-performing students from families with lower incomes to apply to elite private colleges that meet 100% of need in droves, especially in states like Pennsylvania where the top public universities tend to provide poor FA. Our actual world is not a world of perfect information. Most of those lower-income students have no idea what opportunities they might have. Those with the best information tend to be much higher up in SES, and many of them don’t require need-based aid. And to be perfectly candid, most of the private colleges that promise to meet 100% of need couldn’t afford to do so if their applicant pool and admitted student population reflected the demographics of the country as a whole–i.e., if they needed to meet 100% of need for the 97% of their students who were found to require need-based aid. So their efforts to reach out to lower SES students tend to be quite narrow and selective, and arguably more for show than for real.</p>