Where are the students at the top schools coming from?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Over the last few weeks I have visited the websites of the USNWR Top 20 and looked for the student profile that would show the geographic diversity of students attending. I found the data for 14 of the 20 schools. The schools with missing data are:</p>

<p>PRINCETON
YALE
CALTECH
COLUMBIA
WASH U
BROWN
J HOPKINS
EMORY</p>

<p>If you like this idea and have the information for the missing schools, please post it and I will add it to my analysis. </p>

<p>In all, I was able to account for a little more than 61% of the students attending the USNWR Top 20. Here is an unofficial counting of what I was able to determine about the 14 colleges that provided data:</p>

<p>23% Northeast/New England
18% Midwest
14% Mid-Atlantic
15% South
6% Southwest
12% West
1% Mountain/Central</p>

<p>11% International</p>

<p>20% In-State</p>

2

<p>Do you have figures for the percentage of the national population that lives in each of the regions of the US as you have defined them?</p>

3

<p>This is such a typical CC like thread.</p>

4

<p>From Wikipedia
299,498,000 TOTAL US POPULATION</p>

<p>10,766,000 (4%) NEW ENGLAND
6,437,000 Massachusettes
1,322,000 Maine
1,315,000 New Hampshire
1,068,000 Rhode Island
624,000 Vermont</p>

<p>43,976,000 (15%) NORTHEAST
19,306,000 New York
12,440,000 Pennsylvania
8,725,000 New Jersey
3,505,000 Connecticut</p>

<p>24,787,000 (8%) MID-ATLANTIC
8,856,000 North Carolina
7,643,000 Virginia
5,616,000 Maryland
1,818,000 West Virginia
854,000 Delaware</p>

<p>53,817,000 (18%) SOUTH
18,089,000 Florida
9,364,000 Georgia
6,039,000 Tennessee
4,599,000 Alabama
4,321,000 South Carolina
4,288,000 Louisiana
4,206,000 Kentucky
2,911,000 Mississippi</p>

<p>38,118,000 (13%) SOUTHWEST
23,507,000 Texas
6,166,000 Arizona
3,679,000 Oklahoma
2,811,000 Arkansas
1,955,000 New Mexico</p>

<p>64,800,000 (22%) MIDWEST
12,832,000 Illinois
11,478,000 Ohio
10,095,000 Michigan
6,314,000 Indiana
5,843,000 Missouri
5,557,000 Wisconsin
5,167,000 Minnesota
2,982,000 Iowa
2,764,000 Kansas
1,768,000 Nebraska</p>

<p>49,050,000 (16%) WEST
36,457,000 California
6,396,000 Washington
3,701,000 Oregon
2,496,000 Nevada</p>

<p>11,647,000 (4%) MOUNTAIN
4,753,000 Colorado
2,550,000 Utah
1,466,000 Idaho
945,000 Montana
782,000 South Dakota
636,000 North Dakota
515,000 Wyoming</p>

<p>2,537,000 (1%) OTHER
1,286,000 Hawaii
670,000 Alaska
581,000 Washington, DC</p>

5

<p>Hawkette, around here Pa is considered mid-atlantic.(Around here being Pa:) )</p>

6

<p>ramses2,
Not sure where "around here" is, but I would respectfully disagree with classifying Pennsylvania as Mid-Atlantic. Pittsburgh and points west of Harrisbury could arguably be seen as more Midwestern than Northeastern, but certainly not Mid-Atlantic. As for the Philadelphia area, my understanding is that the residents of that area are much more inclined to look northward and associate with New York than with Baltimore or Washington or Richmond or Raleigh-Durham, which I would consider as Mid-Atlantic.</p>

7

<p>


It's not like I'm trashing WashU.</p>

8

<p>Around here is the Philly area. We most definitely align ourselves with Delaware, Maryland and DC. From news to local mags...we're midatlantic. Richmond and Raleigh seem most definitely southern.</p>

9

<p>Delaware, I can see, but not Baltimore and DC more than NYC and definitely not for western PA. And Richmond is seen as the North by folks in the deeper South (FL, GA, AL, TN, MS, LA, TX). I think I'll just agree to disagree on the classifications. </p>

<p>Ultimately, I plan to post all of the data that I have collected, but I need some help in its collection. Does anybody have any geographic data on the students at the following schools? </p>

<p>PRINCETON
YALE
CALTECH
COLUMBIA
WASH U
BROWN
J HOPKINS
EMORY</p>

10

<p>Emory:
South 40%
Mid-Atlantic 20%
Midwest 12%
New England 8%
West 6%
Southwest 5%
International 8% </p>

<p>... Data is only for Class of 2010.. but it should be fairly representative of the College as a whole. <a href="http://www.emory.edu/ADMISSIONS/about/class-profile.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.emory.edu/ADMISSIONS/about/class-profile.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

11

<p>jkh411,
Thanks for the data. </p>

<p>Also, I should add that all of my data is for a single year and I am considering this as a proxy for an entire school.</p>

12

<p>Hawkette, I googled midatlantic region and this is the first page that comes up:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=mid+atlantic+region%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=mid+atlantic+region&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I'm only bringing this up because I know from our college search that my son was seen as coming from the mid atlantic region.</p>

13

<p>hawkette ... what are 14 schools which were included (I just to be sure I have the same US News Top 20 you have) ... I want to summarize your data differently ... to me the spread looks about like you would expect assuming kids have some bias to going to school locally (the Top 20 schools are biased to the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic).</p>

<pre><code> US Top20% Top20Schools
--- -------- --------------
</code></pre>

<p>Northeast/NE 19% 23% Yale, Brown, etc
Mid-Atlantic 8% 14% Princeton, Penn</p>

<p>given the 14 schools I'll finish this ...</p>

14

<p>3togo,
My impression is that there is some regional bias to the attendance results. That is not a big surprise, but I was surprised in an earlier thread when I saw some very high (to me) in-state percentages for a few of the most historically prestigious colleges. </p>

<p>Here are the colleges that I know as the USNWR Top 20 and for which I have done the searches:</p>

<p>1 Princeton -9% of the data has been collected
2 Harvard 100%
3 Yale 0%
4 Cal Tech 0%
4 Stanford 6%
4 MIT 100%
7 U Penn 101%
8 Duke 86%
9 U Chicago 98%
9 Dartmouth 99%
9 Columbia 14%
12 Wash U StL 0%
12 Cornell 100%
14 Northwestern 100%
15 Brown 8%
16 J Hopkins 0%
17 Rice 100%
18 Emory 99%
18 Vanderbilt 100%
20 Notre Dame 100%</p>

<p>Thanks for any help you can provide and let's compare results when you get your analysis done.</p>

15

<p>Can we please stop removing Connecticut from New England? Please? Thank you.</p>

<p>(Do I need to start going into high school geography classes or something?)</p>

16

<p>For the states that seem to be in question, I am going to use Wikipedia as my source. Here is how they define the area that includes Pennsylvania and Connecticut. </p>

<p>As defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, the Northeast region of the United States covers nine states: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.</p>

<p>Here is the updated distribution of population:</p>

<p>(100%) 299,498,000 TOTAL</p>

<p>(18%) 54,742,000 NORTHEAST/NEW ENGLAND
19,306,000 New York
12,440,000 Pennsylvania
8,725,000 New Jersey
6,437,000 Massachusettes
3,505,000 Connecticut
1,322,000 Maine
1,315,000 New Hampshire
1,068,000 Rhode Island
624,000 Vermont</p>

<p>(6%) 16,512,000 MID-ATLANTIC
7,643,000 Virginia
5,616,000 Maryland
1,818,000 West Virginia
854,000 Delaware
581,000 Washington, DC</p>

<p>(22%) 65,484,000 SOUTH
18,089,000 Florida
9,364,000 Georgia
8,856,000 North Carolina
6,039,000 Tennessee
4,599,000 Alabama
4,321,000 South Carolina
4,288,000 Louisiana
4,206,000 Kentucky
2,911,000 Mississippi
2,811,000 Arkansas</p>

<p>(12%) 35,307,000 SOUTHWEST
23,507,000 Texas
6,166,000 Arizona
3,679,000 Oklahoma
1,955,000 New Mexico </p>

<p>(22%) 64,800,000 MIDWEST
12,832,000 Illinois
11,478,000 Ohio
10,095,000 Michigan
6,314,000 Indiana
5,843,000 Missouri
5,557,000 Wisconsin
5,167,000 Minnesota
2,982,000 Iowa
2,764,000 Kansas
1,768,000 Nebraska</p>

<p>(17%) 51,006,000 WEST
36,457,000 California
6,396,000 Washington
3,701,000 Oregon
2,496,000 Nevada
1,286,000 Hawaii
670,000 Alaska</p>

<p>(4%) 11,647,000 MOUNTAIN
4,753,000 Colorado
2,550,000 Utah
1,466,000 Idaho
945,000 Montana
782,000 South Dakota
636,000 North Dakota
515,000 Wyoming</p>

17

<p>The New England states have never been in question. ;) And any college student should be able to tell you why Wikipedia is not a valid source for anything.</p>

<p>Thank you, though. :D</p>

18

<p>Well, I live in NC, and we definitely consider ourselves a "Southern" state-- not "mid-Atlantic." At least, I think most North Carolinians think this way.</p>

19

<p>jack,
I agree. I moved NC to the South where it properly belongs</p>

<p>RoughWinds,
Geography was never my strongest subject. Sorry and hope that we now are in agreement. :)</p>

20

<p>Having lived in New York and the South, I always considered New York, Penn. and New Jersey to be the Mid Atlantic states, and the old Confederacy to be the South.
Don't know where that puts Maryland and Delaware. I guess I'd append them to the Mid Atlantic states, if I had to make a choice.</p>