<p>UCDAlum82-
Your second statement is pretty close to correct but their really isn’t a radius. Small states like Rhode Island would be much less than 300 miles.</p>
<p>Yup, there is definitely a disadvantage for geographically large states. If Norcal were its own state, Stanford would suddenly fare far better.</p>
<p>cherokeejew-
Why do you say that geographically large states are at a disadvantage? Stanford out-drew Vanderbilt, Emory, and Rice. I think the deal with Stanford is that they have not aggressively pursued a nationwide base and have been content to favor Californians in admissions.</p>
<p>jazzymom-
I honestly have not had a chance to study the results in detail, In general, it seems like the results are consistent with selectivity maybe 90% of the time. The more selective schools tend to out-draw the less selective schools. I see an exception to this with Washington U which seems to dominate more than you would expect. But, I understand they market their school aggressively. I detect a slight advantage to the Catholic schools, Notre Dame and Georgetown. They probably have strong appeal to Catholics that trumps selectivity in some cases. I see an advantage when engineering schools are paired against non-engineering schools. Eng schools attract an additional segment. Brown from tiny RI and Dartmouth from rural NH sometimes show surprising strength. I wonder what’s up with them. These are just some off-the-cuff, quick observations.</p>
<p>I agree, the interesting question is why the data is sometimes inconsistent with prestige and selectivity. As you say, perhaps there are regional differences in appeal among the elite.</p>
<p>Thanks for participating in the discussion. Let me know if you have any suggestions to help understand what it all means.</p>
<p>Does this only include cross admits? In other words, say i live right next to MIT and HArvard and would love to go, but i’m not good enough to get in, so end up going to another school in another state, doesn’t mean I dodn’t want to go to Harvard. See what I mean?</p>
<p>Collegehelp: </p>
<p>I would hestitate to make any conclusions other than the super obvious — the Stanford figures indicate something its own administration has acknowledged. It’s drawing as many students as it would like from certain parts of the country. </p>
<p>It took me awhile to not look at the pairings as a contest between the two universities, which is why i think the win-loss tag is misleading (or was it provocative?), since there’s nothing to indicate this involves cross admits. I’ve been repeating a mantra that the drawing power involves the Uni’s ability to pull students from its competitor Uni’s state and vice versa and nothing more. Attaching reasons to this has to be pure speculation. </p>
<p>To me, it’s like those games get posted and you can find endless permutations or argument in speculating on the figures. </p>
<p>For example, isn’t it possible that the figures indicate not the students’ preferences (ability to draw students from x,y,z state) but the college’s preferences. That is, the college in state X is targeting and admitting students in the competitor uni’s state to a greater degree than college in state Y is targeting and admitting students in the first uni’s state. Or something like that.</p>
<p>agoodfella-
I think I see what you mean. This is all very complicated.</p>
<p>If students in each state who go to a private research university are in a bell-curve when it comes to ability, then the less selective universities would have an advantage recruiting students against more selective universities because there is a higher percentage of matches in the pool for less selective.</p>
<p>Now, I have focused on 22 elite private universities which have considerable overlap in their student profiles but which are not exactly equal in selectivity. So, I suspect the selectivity effect is negligible. Most of the pairings results seem to make sense. They are all picking from the cream of the crop.</p>
<p>Is my thinking correct on this? Am I answering the right question?</p>
<p>jazzymom-
I think colleges like geographic diversity but I have not heard of schools favoring certain states on a large scale. But, what you say is possible, I suppose. College policy could be driving the enrollments in certain states, not the laws of (human) nature.</p>
<p>Whoops. Meant to say Stanford is not drawing as many students as it would like.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I would hardly say that Stanford ‘favors’ Californians in admission. Rather, it is that Californians are far more likely to apply to and want to attend Stanford. Let’s face it - California is a nice state, such that those who are already in California usually prefer not to leave.</p>
<p>No offense, but I think the numbers you’ve meticulously outlined are far more drawn-out than than they deserve to be, as they are ill-guided for reasons pizzagirl has accurately outlined on pages 2 and 3.</p>
<p>sakky-
California IS a very nice state and 66% of the CA students who attend private universities or LACs stay within CA.</p>
<p>But, explain this: 78% of Michigan students who attend privates stay in-state. Is MI more beautiful than CA? There must be more to it, such as the number of private relative to public schools.</p>
<p>percent of freshmen attending a private school (university or LAC) who attend an in-state private school</p>
<p>TX 79%
MI 78%
CA 66%
IL 64%
WI 60%
NY 57%
WA 53%
PA 50%
FL 49%
VA 46%
NC 44%
MA 34%</p>
<p>Brown from tiny RI and Dartmouth from rural NH sometimes show surprising strength. I wonder what’s up with them. These are just some off-the-cuff, quick observations.>></p>
<p>Sigh. Because they are small states! Because they can still attract very “local” people, but they are counted as being from a different state because there are so many small, close states in NEngland!</p>
<p>You keep assuming being in the same state = local. And yes, that’s the case for the New England states, but it’s not the case for states such as California.</p>
<p>When talking about students who stay in state you’d be remiss in not taking into account those that go to public schools in state. </p>
<p>But I think what you are trying to do is compare “sphere of influence”, and you are assuming that is state lines. I’d suggest that the “sphere of influence” a private has on the east coast might well extend beyond it’s state lines. I’d suggest the “sphere of influence” of private universities in geographically larger states might be much closer than the state lines. The “sphere of influence” of Stanford, for instance, is strong in the SF Bay area, but fairly weak in southern California. The “sphere of influence” for some of the ivies is probably several states. It does not surprise me to see MA as having very few freshman attending private schools within their state. Now it would surprise me if a significantly smaller percentage of MA freshman left went to school more than 500 miles from their home. </p>
<p>The thing that makes it more complicated is the density of students and private universities. In Texas, a huge state, there are less private universities (and prospective freshman) per square mile than there are in New York. So a Texas private might have a larger sphere of influence, as a student living 600 miles away has less choices of private universities 600 miles away from him or her.</p>
<p>Another factor is the student willing to travel far to go to school. Yes, there are some number that are willing to travel across the country for their dream school, and whose parents are willing to pick up the extra tab for traveling that far. I’d guess for even private school students that number is less than 50%. For these students you need to factor in all the challenges of assimilating into new cultures. The east coast kids might find it easier to live in the milder climate and less formal atmoshere of the left coast, than the west coast kids learning to live with both cold weather and more formal attitudes. I know when anyone here in California looks at moving out of state, one of the things they consider is how hard will it be to adjust to the weather, and the culture. College students are more flexible than parents with children, but I can’t think of one student I know going back east that didn’t at least acknowledge that weather is going to be a challenge. Rural students might find the idea of going to a urban school equally daunting. </p>
<p>I do think it’s impressive when a urban school, like NYU, can pull students from rural Wyoming. Or when a Texas school, like Rice, can pull students from NYC. I think it’s less impressive to see numbers that shows Tufts pulls lots of kids from the state of New York, or USC pulls kids from San Diego.</p>
<p>UCDAlum82-
“Sphere of influence” is a good term for what I am trying to get at. </p>
<p>Since we are comparing schools pairwise in their ability to attract students in each other’s home states, I think distance from home is more or less equivalent between the two schools, on average. Willingness to travel is accounted for.</p>
<p>I think fluctuations in the density of private universities across the country have an equivalent effect on both schools in the pair. For example, U Penn is in an area where there are a lot of private universities. These other universities near Penn would compete for the students Pennsylvania might send to Stanford and also compete for the students California might send to Penn. </p>
<p>The effects of culture and climate are intrinsically part of the drawing power of a school so I don’t really see that as a problem with the method but are simply some of the things that students factor into their decisions.</p>
<p>I agree. Attracting students over long distances is a measure of a university’s appeal.</p>
<p>Since we are comparing schools pairwise in their ability to attract students in each other’s home states, I think distance from home is more or less equivalent between the two schools, on average. Willingness to travel is accounted for.>></p>
<p>But no it’s NOT. Because the kid from San Diego was willing to travel a long distance to go to Stanford because of its magnetism. Yet your algo doesn’t treat him as though he did. It doesn’t give Stanford any “magnetism points” for attracting a student who was geographically far away, because your algo says that it’s just another California student. Yet Harvard gets magnetism points for attracting the kid just over the RI border.</p>
<p>Collegehelp, several of us are pointing out that your algo is limited by your assumption that a sphere of influence corresponds to state boundaries. When in fact it might be better to define it as being with X miles of the school.</p>
<p>Collegehelp, how do you respond to this post which I made earlier?</p>
<p>Assume Harvard and Stanford each have a freshman class of 1,000.
If Harvard and Stanford each went out and drew 1,000 random names from a United States directory to fill their freshman class, 10% (100) of each class would be from California, 2% of each class (20) would be from Massachusetts. (Numbers estimated, but you get the idea.)
Yet you would conclude that Harvard was more magnetic because it drew 100Californians compared to Stanford’s drawing only 20 Massachusetts-ians.
Would that be the correct conclusion to draw?</p>
<p>why stop with only 22? Why not 23, USC, or 24 (Tufts)?</p>
<p>Pizzagirl-
Alright, say Harvard and Stanford each have the same class size (1000) so we can ignore differences in class size. Further, let’s say California has 10,000 students willing to forego the UC system and attend a private uni while Massachusetts has 5,000 willing to forego the Mass public system and attend a private uni.</p>
<p>If Harvard attracted 100 Californians and Stanford attracted 20 from Massachusetts, I would NOT conclude that Harvard out-drew Stanford.</p>
<p>But, if I divided the 100 CA freshmen at Harvard by 10,000 I would get a score = .01 for Harvard. And, if I divided the 20 Mass freshman at Stanford by 5,000 I would get a score = .004 for Stanford. Therefore, Harvard out-drew Stanford RELATIVE to the number of students from their respective states willing to attend a private uni.</p>
<p>It is the division by the number of freshman exports to private unis that adjusts for differences in the size of the state and the appeal of the public system and the appeal of LACs.</p>
<p>bluebayou-
I know. I would have liked to include more schools and maybe I will add a few more at a later time.</p>
<p>It was a matter of time constraints. Although I used the IPEDS Peer Analysis System and Excel spreadsheets, this particular project was still labor intensive and I have tons of other work to do. But, I’ll come back to it at some time.</p>
<p>USC and Tufts would be next in the US News list.</p>