<p>D has been accepted as a Monroe Scholar and is seriously considering W&M. We'll be visiting in a few weeks. There is a list of Monroe Scholars posted on the school website of the Monores for the class of 2013. Of the 70+ listed there is only 1 from California. Any ideas why the school is so unpopular with the high stats Californians? I realize that 65% of all the admits come from VA and for that reason wouldn't expect to see as high a % as at, say, Gtown, but 1 out of 70 seems really low.</p>
<p>fwiw, one of D’s best friends…class of '11…has a full tuition scholarship (maybe Murray) so would not be counted among Monroes</p>
<p>I mean, Cali has its own 2 schools of comparable academics (Cal and UCLA) that they can get for in-state tuition. There are lots of applicants from NY, NJ, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts though (all states with decent high school systems but comparatively lackluster state colleges).</p>
<p>That said, I’m friends with quite a few people from California who go here though (none with special scholarships or honors), so idk.</p>
<p>I think it’s just b/c not that many californians attend W&M.</p>
<p>If there are 70 Monroe Scholars…</p>
<p>Assuming in-state and out-of-state students are equally likely to be accepted as Monroe Scholars (and I don’t want to re-open the debate about in-state vs. out-of-state applicant quality… just keep things simple), about 46 would be VA residents and 24 would be OOS. California has 12.4% of the remaining U.S. population, so if California residents applied and were admitted to W&M at the same rate as residents of every other state, one might expect 3 California residents to be Monroe Scholars. The difference you’re seeing is probably due to a lower application rate for residents of very distant states, and I assume it is primarily due to geography (though I don’t have any hard data to back that up). Even so… the difference is only 2. And with a program so small, I’m sure it varies from year to year.</p>
<p>Remember that the list your viewing is only those who enroll, not those who were offered. We do get a good number of applications from California and we also get several enrolling students from CA each year but of course W&M is competing with a strong public school system in California and the distance from California makes it harder for W&M to yield those strong students.</p>