Decided to look at the Forbes list, and quickly confirmed it is a load of horse manure (has Davidson ranked higher than Emory ... for cripes sake). But using the numbers from the list, it shows Davidson cost at $62k and admission rate of 22%, and Elon cost of $47k with 57% admission rate.

So now that I've countered the "affordability" and "wonderful weather" of these fine North Carolina institutions .... I'm still left wondering what on earth would compel a high school grad of stature in New York to apply to either of these schools, when it's highly doubtful that a desirable job in NY is going to give any shred of advantage to a Davidson or Elon grad over say a SUNY grad.


If no one wants to play, fine. It's just a dumb aside curiosity that I had.

(08-11-2017 10:58 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(08-11-2017 10:51 AM)dbackjon Wrote:  Davidson has had a stellar academic reputation for decades.

Thank you for confirming they had no claim to fame.

Unless you're an Ivy, Stanford, or MIT, "academic reputation" alone doesn't do jack squat for building a national brand. Hmmmmm .... wonder if that's why so many schools spend ("waste") so much money on athletics, in the first place ...

If you mean basketball, Davidson has three trips to the Sweet 16 and two to the Elite 8—before Steph—while being coached by Lefty Driesell. So I wouldn't say they had no national brand before that. It wasn't a cow college that got thrust into the limelight because of Curry.

(08-11-2017 11:38 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  Decided to look at the Forbes list, and quickly confirmed it is a load of horse manure (has Davidson ranked higher than Emory ... for cripes sake). But using the numbers from the list, it shows Davidson cost at $62k and admission rate of 22%, and Elon cost of $47k with 57% admission rate.

So now that I've countered the "affordability" and "wonderful weather" of these fine North Carolina institutions .... I'm still left wondering what on earth would compel a high school grad of stature in New York to apply to either of these schools, when it's highly doubtful that a desirable job in NY is going to give any shred of advantage to a Davidson or Elon grad over say a SUNY grad.


If no one wants to play, fine. It's just a dumb aside curiosity that I had.

Higher Education is a prestige game -but there is a weather component for sure (all things being equal you'd prefer to attend a school in Southern California rather than Minnesota). Rankings come in many varieties, and are at best a guesstimate:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_an...y_rankings

more specifically

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankings_o...ted_States

Formulas are used, and here is Forbes from Wikipedia's entry:

Quote:In 2008, Forbes.com began publishing an annual list, prepared by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity[25] of "America's Best Colleges". Student satisfaction (evaluations from Niche.com and retention rates constitute 20% of the score. Post-graduate success (salary data of alumni from PayScale and the Department of Education, alumni appearing on the CCAP's America’s Leaders List) constitutes 35% of the score. Student debt loads constitute 20% of the score. Academic success (the proportion of students receiving nationally competitive awards or pursuing a PhD) constitutes 12.5% of the score. The graduation rate (the proportion of students who complete a four-year degree in four years) constitutes 12.5% of the score. The 2017 ranking puts Harvard University at the top, followed by Stanford, Yale, Princeton, and MIT.

Different formulas yield different results. That is how Davidson can wind up ahead of Emory.

Note: region can greatly impact wages. Obviously a DMV school, a CA school or a Seattle school is going to score more simply because of the proximity to the highest paying jobs than one in the Midwest or Texas, and considerably higher than one in the South. New England schools it should be noted benefit from the pipeline into NYC.

The South along the Atlantic Coast has some high prestige schools. In this group I'd call Elon a climber. But Davidson is well known for it's exclusivity and highly selective admission. And to be honest most of a school's performance is a result of selective admission (admission yield really). A high yield indicates the school was likely many students first or second choice. A low yield indicates it is more of a safety school for the majority of applicants.

And the choice order is where the prestige comes in. The classes and even the quality of teaching may be close to identical for many majors at say U of Virginia and say NC State. But the qualitative difference in the students admitted leads to the UVa degree holding far higher prestige. Companies are much more likely to fast track a UVa grad than a NC State grad based on that. It is what it is. Or more accurately you are who you associate with.

(08-11-2017 12:02 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  If you mean basketball, Davidson has three trips to the Sweet 16 and two to the Elite 8—before Steph—while being coached by Lefty Driesell. So I wouldn't say they had no national brand before that. It wasn't a cow college that got thrust into the limelight because of Curry.

Sure, if you were a big fan of college basketball in the 1960's (you know, 40 years before Curry's run in 2008), then yeah you know of Davidson.

But the much grander point is only further proven: even if Davidson had a better academic reputation than Emory, their name wouldn't be nearly as recognizable as it is now across the nation if it weren't for athletics.

(08-11-2017 12:47 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  Higher Education is a prestige game -but there is a weather component for sure (all things being equal you'd prefer to attend a school in Southern California rather than Minnesota). Rankings come in many varieties, and are at best a guesstimate:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_an...y_rankings

more specifically

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankings_o...ted_States

Formulas are used, and here is Forbes from Wikipedia's entry:

Quote:In 2008, Forbes.com began publishing an annual list, prepared by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity[25] of "America's Best Colleges". Student satisfaction (evaluations from Niche.com and retention rates constitute 20% of the score. Post-graduate success (salary data of alumni from PayScale and the Department of Education, alumni appearing on the CCAP's America’s Leaders List) constitutes 35% of the score. Student debt loads constitute 20% of the score. Academic success (the proportion of students receiving nationally competitive awards or pursuing a PhD) constitutes 12.5% of the score. The graduation rate (the proportion of students who complete a four-year degree in four years) constitutes 12.5% of the score. The 2017 ranking puts Harvard University at the top, followed by Stanford, Yale, Princeton, and MIT.

Different formulas yield different results. That is how Davidson can wind up ahead of Emory.

Note: region can greatly impact wages. Obviously a DMV school, a CA school or a Seattle school is going to score more simply because of the proximity to the highest paying jobs than one in the Midwest or Texas, and considerably higher than one in the South. New England schools it should be noted benefit from the pipeline into NYC.

The South along the Atlantic Coast has some high prestige schools. In this group I'd call Elon a climber. But Davidson is well known for it's exclusivity and highly selective admission. And to be honest most of a school's performance is a result of selective admission (admission yield really). A high yield indicates the school was likely many students first or second choice. A low yield indicates it is more of a safety school for the majority of applicants.

And the choice order is where the prestige comes in. The classes and even the quality of teaching may be close to identical for many majors at say U of Virginia and say NC State. But the qualitative difference in the students admitted leads to the UVa degree holding far higher prestige. Companies are much more likely to fast track a UVa grad than a NC State grad based on that. It is what it is. Or more accurately you are who you associate with.

Definitely aware of the perception by the elites to use admission rate as a fake metric for academic quality and prestige.

(08-11-2017 01:20 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(08-11-2017 12:02 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  If you mean basketball, Davidson has three trips to the Sweet 16 and two to the Elite 8—before Steph—while being coached by Lefty Driesell. So I wouldn't say they had no national brand before that. It wasn't a cow college that got thrust into the limelight because of Curry.

Sure, if you were a big fan of college basketball in the 1960's (you know, 40 years before Curry's run in 2008), then yeah you know of Davidson.

But the much grander point is only further proven: even if Davidson had a better academic reputation than Emory, their name wouldn't be nearly as recognizable as it is now across the nation if it weren't for athletics.

Maybe I'm having trouble tracking your argument, but it seems like you're making two points: a) Davidson doesn't have any special appeal to Northeast Corridor students, and b) Davidson wouldn't have any presence without Steph Curry (and probably the Elite Eight run of his senior season). But while it's not an Ivy, and it's not Duke, I think there's more to them than that, and whether it's immediately obvious or not, there's a reason they attract kids from the Northeast.

(08-11-2017 01:36 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  Maybe I'm having trouble tracking your argument, but it seems like you're making two points: a) Davidson doesn't have any special appeal to Northeast Corridor students, and b) Davidson wouldn't have any presence without Steph Curry (and probably the Elite Eight run of his senior season). But while it's not an Ivy, and it's not Duke, I think there's more to them than that, and whether it's immediately obvious or not, there's a reason they attract kids from the Northeast.

I'm not denying that it does. I'm questioning why. It's certainly not price, as was suggested by one poster, and I really don't think it's the weather (as suggested by another poster). I reject that an undergrad degree from Davidson gets you in the door and/or lands you the job for more high paying jobs in NY than a degree from SUNY would. It's simply no where near the cachet of a Duke, an Emory, or an Ivy.

So damned if I can figure out what it is. That was my original, and only, main point.

Maybe they give out massive scholarships to attract kids from the NE, for some reason. Just taking a wild guess.


The bball point is not the main point. I'm not interested in arguing if Davidson was a relevant CBB brand before 2008 ... because, frankly, who cares about Davidson bball?? That point only has to do with the fact that Davidson, itself as a brand, is a recognizable brand across the country because of the 2008 basketball season and because of Steph Curry. NOT because of its (supposed) reputation as a top liberal arts college in the south.

Does anyone know why when the ACC was founded privates like Duke and Wake Forest got invited by the public schools while William & Mary (public that acts more like a private) and Richmond were left out?

MplsBison,

Selectivity in admission is not a "fake" metric. Higher quality raw material coming in almost always leads to higher quality product coming out. This shows up most dramatically in public K-12 schools and is especially pronounced in the larger urban areas where strong segregation occurs (it's less to do with race than with education and income levels, as the wealthier, better educated and more successful congregate in the nicer neighborhoods, and the poorest and least educated in the worst; no surprise there is a nurture effect on the kids performances in schools).

Since this is a sports forum, I'll use football recruits as an example. Prestige in college Athletics has nothing to do with Academics. Athletics is the only world in which Alabama can compete head up with UCLA, Texas, Stanford and Michigan for the highest performing high school students. Prestige is in this case the power conferences, and the most successful power schools within those conferences to produce pro players. These 65 schools (really 50 as many struggle to recruit true NFL prospects at this level) account for over 75% of the players drafted and the players in the NFL. The G5, which is also 65 schools, accounts for less than 15%. This is an example of quality coming in leads to better product coming out. We can actually measure outcomes in sports because it's public.

But the same outcome ratios exist in higher education. The same bias for the best exists in business hiring, and thus they look to these top rated schools for results. While Admission selectivity and yield are not performance metrics, they correlate very closely to performance results. This makes them useful predictors and thus valid measurables.

my best guess is NC lead charge to set up ACC
4 from NC, 2 from SC, VA & MD
NC controled the voting block, which they did until conf hit 12

(08-11-2017 04:03 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  Higher quality raw material coming in almost always leads to higher quality product coming out.

1) But selectivity doesn't guarantee anything about the actual quality of those who do make it in!! That is precisely why it's an absurd, fake metric.

2) High quality in => high quality out ....... fine, but aren't we supposed to be arguing about what happens in the middle of that input-output mapping??? Isn't that the whole point? How can we possibly gloss over that?? I'm saying that, for example, if a school only takes elite incoming students, and then produces elite workers .... how can anything about the quality of what the school itself does be judged??


There was nothing wrong about the rest of your post, but it was all prefaced on the idea that selectivity guarantees quality, which I just smashed to bits.

W&M & Richmond fit quite well in the SoCon. They just need to run ETSU, UTC & WCU to the OVC.

Furman - 3000 - stadium capacity 16,000
Mercer - 8500 - stadium capacity 10,200
Richmond - 4100 - stadium capacity 8,700
Samford - 5500 - stadium capacity 6,700
The Citadel - 3500 - stadium capacity 14,500
VMI - 1700 - stadium capacity 10,000
Wofford - 1700 - stadium capacity 13,000
W&M - 8600 - stadium capacity 12,600

(08-11-2017 03:32 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Does anyone know why when the ACC was founded privates like Duke and Wake Forest got invited by the public schools while William & Mary (public that acts more like a private) and Richmond were left out?

Virginia was left out, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Coast_Conference

(08-11-2017 08:02 PM)AppManDG Wrote:  W&M & Richmond fit quite well in the SoCon. They just need to run ETSU, UTC & WCU to the OVC.

Furman - 3000 - stadium capacity 16,000
Mercer - 8500 - stadium capacity 10,200
Richmond - 4100 - stadium capacity 8,700
Samford - 5500 - stadium capacity 6,700
The Citadel - 3500 - stadium capacity 14,500
VMI - 1700 - stadium capacity 10,000
Wofford - 1700 - stadium capacity 13,000
W&M - 8600 - stadium capacity 12,600

Western probably should be a Big South school. I mean, I don't blame them for not voluntarily dropping to that level (it certainly didn't do VMI any good), but they might actually regularly be competitive in the Big South.

(08-11-2017 11:38 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  Decided to look at the Forbes list, and quickly confirmed it is a load of horse manure (has Davidson ranked higher than Emory ... for cripes sake). But using the numbers from the list, it shows Davidson cost at $62k and admission rate of 22%, and Elon cost of $47k with 57% admission rate.

So now that I've countered the "affordability" and "wonderful weather" of these fine North Carolina institutions .... I'm still left wondering what on earth would compel a high school grad of stature in New York to apply to either of these schools, when it's highly doubtful that a desirable job in NY is going to give any shred of advantage to a Davidson or Elon grad over say a SUNY grad.


If no one wants to play, fine. It's just a dumb aside curiosity that I had.

You're looking at sticker price.

There's an institutional aid component. Some schools are more generous to out of state students than others. Elon is generous.

I posted in good faith. Elon is an economic bargain for Jersey kids and their families with a nice campus. If you choose not to accept this info, that's your call.

(08-11-2017 11:38 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  Decided to look at the Forbes list, and quickly confirmed it is a load of horse manure (has Davidson ranked higher than Emory ... for cripes sake). But using the numbers from the list, it shows Davidson cost at $62k and admission rate of 22%, and Elon cost of $47k with 57% admission rate.

So now that I've countered the "affordability" and "wonderful weather" of these fine North Carolina institutions .... I'm still left wondering what on earth would compel a high school grad of stature in New York to apply to either of these schools, when it's highly doubtful that a desirable job in NY is going to give any shred of advantage to a Davidson or Elon grad over say a SUNY grad.


If no one wants to play, fine. It's just a dumb aside curiosity that I had.

I don't think you really get how private schools work. My son got accepted at UDel, UCLA, and WPI. As he did not get his major choice at UCLA and UDel only gave a small discount and so was about the same as WPI after grants (both less than UCLA because CA only has need based grants, and we make too much to qualify) he chose WPI (there were a couple others, only NYU did not accept him). The grants were quite significant, just short of 50% -- we don't qualify for need based grants, but those who do see additional means tested grants that reduce their sticker at least $10-15K more. One of our froend's son got into Stanford and he did not pay full sticker.

But the basic point is, nobody who gets into an elite school on merit pays sticker. That $42-45K tuition sticker price is rarely that. $25-28K is more typical. Need based will see that drop below $10K. If you are paying more than that, then you are probably not a preferred student. The top 1-2% ranked students (my son came in the 4-5% range) typically will see grants reducing tuition at least 75%, even before means. Why do private schools do that, as surely they can fill the seats with less discount? Simple, to create alumni, and grateful alumni at that. Donations and gifts are what these schools run on.

Another strong selling point of the better private schools is first rate student services. Just as private High Schools work hard to get 90-99% (depending on the school) of their graduates placed straight into 4 year colleges, the top private colleges work hard to place their graduates, either in the best companies or in the best grad schools. Unlike public schools, they have no State transfers to work with, so they need to maximize the value for their students.

For my son this meant a Senior project working with a development company for UMass General to develop a monetized app (yes a real completed product), and Co-Op and intern work --LOL, he wound up working IT at a mine in Arizona. Sure there are co-ops and internships at public schools (I did mine 28 years ago at Ford Aerospace, then got a part-time job for a Telephony company my Senior year, even at SJSU ... but this is very unusual for that school). It allowed me to graduate with cash in my pockets and a new car. My son is getting similar. What is different is the scale. WPI places more interns in Silicon Valley Co-ops than most public schools (they have a faculty advisor out here permanently working connections and setting these projects up -- CMU, MIT and Harvard also do this). You don't get that level of student services at a public school. Sure the top 5-10% will get that opportunity at public schools. But some of these private schools the percentage of those getting such opportunities runs much higher, as much as 2/3rds of the students depending on the school.

This is the sort of student service that gives grads a leg up coming out of school for those higher paying jobs.

I honestly think it is simply the evolutionary result of competition. If your grads do better, then they will donate more and improve the ranking of your school. Being private you simply focus resources on achieving those results. This allows you to be more selective. But for a public school, there is much less incentive and more road blocks, both political and bureaucratic that prevent the school from placing such focus. You will never get a public version of Stanford or Cooper Union. There are too many stakeholders who pull in different directions and too many mandates to meet.

(08-11-2017 08:39 PM)chess Wrote:  Virginia was left out, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Coast_Conference

Assuming you meant Virginia Tech? Pretty sure Virginia is a founder of the ACC.

WV also was left out, when it clearly was a geographically similar school to Maryland and Virginia.

(08-11-2017 11:07 PM)nj alum Wrote:  You're looking at sticker price.

There's an institutional aid component. Some schools are more generous to out of state students than others. Elon is generous.

I already addressed this point in post #106. "Maybe they give out massive scholarships to attract kids from the NE, for some reason. Just taking a wild guess."

That is Elon's prerogative, to attract students from the NE by offering them large scholarships/aid packages, if it so wishes to do so.

What is still missing from the equation is why Elon would choose to target such students, instead of targeting students from the Carolinas, Virginia, Tenn, etc. Stu suggested that there are more wealthy/power families in the East. But the idea of attracting the students by making the school cheap would seem to counter-act that.

(08-12-2017 12:36 AM)Stugray2 Wrote:  But the basic point is, nobody who gets into an elite school on merit pays sticker.

...

the top private colleges work hard to place their graduates, either in the best companies or in the best grad schools.

I understand these points well.

To be sure, I wasn't questioning, in the slightest, a decision by a NE high school grad to attend a private school. I was questioning the decision by a NE high school grad to attend a private school in North Carolina. Particularly a school like Elon, which is even less of something special than Davidson, when it comes to brand recognition and ability to land a great job in the NE, versus even a SUNY degree. Let alone going to a private school in the NE.

(08-12-2017 11:14 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(08-11-2017 08:39 PM)chess Wrote:  Virginia was left out, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Coast_Conference

Assuming you meant Virginia Tech? Pretty sure Virginia is a founder of the ACC.

WV also was left out, when it clearly was a geographically similar school to Maryland and Virginia.

(08-11-2017 11:07 PM)nj alum Wrote:  You're looking at sticker price.

There's an institutional aid component. Some schools are more generous to out of state students than others. Elon is generous.

I already addressed this point in post #106. "Maybe they give out massive scholarships to attract kids from the NE, for some reason. Just taking a wild guess."

That is Elon's prerogative, to attract students from the NE by offering them large scholarships/aid packages, if it so wishes to do so.

What is still missing from the equation is why Elon would choose to target such students, instead of targeting students from the Carolinas, Virginia, Tenn, etc. Stu suggested that there are more wealthy/power families in the East. But the idea of attracting the students by making the school cheap would seem to counter-act that.

(08-12-2017 12:36 AM)Stugray2 Wrote:  But the basic point is, nobody who gets into an elite school on merit pays sticker.

...

the top private colleges work hard to place their graduates, either in the best companies or in the best grad schools.

I understand these points well.

To be sure, I wasn't questioning, in the slightest, a decision by a NE high school grad to attend a private school. I was questioning the decision by a NE high school grad to attend a private school in North Carolina. Particularly a school like Elon, which is even less of something special than Davidson, when it comes to brand recognition and ability to land a great job in the NE, versus even a SUNY degree. Let alone going to a private school in the NE.

UVa didn't leave the Socon to form the ACC like the others as they were independent. UVa joined after the other 7 ratified the bylaws

(08-12-2017 11:14 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(08-11-2017 08:39 PM)chess Wrote:  Virginia was left out, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Coast_Conference

Assuming you meant Virginia Tech? Pretty sure Virginia is a founder of the ACC.

WV also was left out, when it clearly was a geographically similar school to Maryland and Virginia.

(08-11-2017 11:07 PM)nj alum Wrote:  You're looking at sticker price.

There's an institutional aid component. Some schools are more generous to out of state students than others. Elon is generous.

I already addressed this point in post #106. "Maybe they give out massive scholarships to attract kids from the NE, for some reason. Just taking a wild guess."

That is Elon's prerogative, to attract students from the NE by offering them large scholarships/aid packages, if it so wishes to do so.

What is still missing from the equation is why Elon would choose to target such students, instead of targeting students from the Carolinas, Virginia, Tenn, etc. Stu suggested that there are more wealthy/power families in the East. But the idea of attracting the students by making the school cheap would seem to counter-act that.

(08-12-2017 12:36 AM)Stugray2 Wrote:  But the basic point is, nobody who gets into an elite school on merit pays sticker.

...

the top private colleges work hard to place their graduates, either in the best companies or in the best grad schools.

I understand these points well.

To be sure, I wasn't questioning, in the slightest, a decision by a NE high school grad to attend a private school. I was questioning the decision by a NE high school grad to attend a private school in North Carolina. Particularly a school like Elon, which is even less of something special than Davidson, when it comes to brand recognition and ability to land a great job in the NE, versus even a SUNY degree. Let alone going to a private school in the NE.

Something else to consider is that there's a ton of high school students in the Northeast. The Elon class of 2020 has 1,553 members. Of them, 50 percent come from Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Which obviously is a pretty significant proportion of the incoming freshman class.

But according to this, 3.5 million students were expected to graduate high school this past school year. If you take the 68.4 percent rate of college enrollment directly after high school that the site cites for the 2014-15 year, and there's no reason to think the numbers are greatly different, then that's about ... 2,394,000 high school seniors that will attend college this year. Give or take.

Now according to the Census, the Northeast accounts for 17.4 percent of the U.S. population, but that also doesn't factor in Delaware, Maryland and northern Virginia, which are part of the Megalopolis and would fit into a demographics conversation about the Northeast. So let's say that the Northeast region as we define it for this thread (Northern Virginia to Maine) accounts for about 20 percent of the U.S. population. Could be more, probably is more, but round numbers are easier to work with.

And while it's possible that the proportion of high school students may be different from other regions, we can't say with certainty (or at least I can't after a cursory Googling). So let's go ahead and say that the Northeast produces 20 percent of high school graduates and 20 percent of incoming college freshmen who enrolled directly from high school. That gives us ... 478,800 Northeast high school graduates who enroll in college this year.

Even if you round Elon's incoming Northeast class up to 825 to account for northern Virginia students, that's still 825 students out of 478,800 potential enrollees from the Northeast.

Which means we're looking at about 0.172 percent of Northeast college-bound members of the Class of 2017 coming to Elon this month. And that doesn't factor in whatever (probably small) number of incoming freshmen who didn't enroll immediately after graduating high school.

So in sum, while more than 50 percent of Elon's freshman class comes from the Northeast sounds like a big deal, 0.172 percent of the Northeast college Class of 2020 is attending Elon does not.

tl;dr The Northeast is big and they send a bunch of college students everywhere, so while they have a big presence at Elon, it's not like there's a pipeline between the Megalopolis and the outskirts of Burlington, North Carolina.

High end students (HS performance and family wealth) are the most likely to travel for school.

Cyniclone is making no distinction for the caliber of the students or the wealth of the families. Urban areas produce large veins of these and schools recruit from these veins because they are "where the money was." One recruiter can go to Philly or Boston and bring in potential recruits from dozens of private high schools (that is how it works, you rent a room in an accessible location for the region, close to the wealthy private high schools, and top performing public schools). The inner city and low performing rural schools are thinner on recruits and yield less.

Big Ten schools like Indiana, Michigan, and Northwestern also recruit these areas to fill seats. And this is what you are missing. It's not Elon alone, but many dozens of the higher end schools who recruit these same veins of students. My son went to Archbishop Mitty because he was a top basketball player (not elite level, but high end for HS Basketball), as we are not Catholic. But it turns out almost half the school was not Catholic. But being private it attracted many top achieving students of all backgrounds. But in common was higher incomes and highly educated parents. All the top brand names recruit the school. Every Ivy, MIT, BU, most B1G schools, many Jesuit schools, and various tech school, a few ACC (Wake, UVa, Georgia Tech), and other (at least half the UAA schools) have booths. They tour the private schools and the top public schools in the vicninity. We have about 25 such high performing schools worth mining in a 15 mile radius, probably 75 in the Bay area as a whole. I imagine it's double or triple that in the LA burbs, and at least triple in the NYC area, while similar number in the Boston area -- DMV is probably closer to LA than SF in recruiting zone.

So these schools all mine there, Elon is just one of many dozens. All are competing for that top 5% student. These top 5% tend to dominate the work world, and thus the wealth -> donations. You don't get very many of those kids from small towns in the South or Midwest. That is what the game is about for these schools.

It's kind of like recruiting football players from Florida and Texas - you won't fill out your entire program with players from there, but it's hard to win without recruiting players from there.