Can you clarify this? There are only 40 or so LACs in the West, and I don’t think they would have the enrollment that the New England LACs do.
I don’t mean in total raw numbers, but as a percentage of each school’s population.
The concept I’m exploring is whether schools that are considered to have “national” stature have low percentages of students from their own region, and their students are mostly from outside their region. Even the top ranking colleges appear to draw heavily from within their own region. Schools in the west – on average -er percentage of students from outside (EDIT: i mean inside) their region than the other 3 regions.
I think you perhaps meant lower percentage from inside (or higher from outside).
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Well, here’s another can of worms (and I’ll have to be careful about mixing my metaphors), but someone upstream mentioned Spelman and Morehouse, two of the most highly esteemed HBCUs in the country. Many, if not most, HBCUs are located in the south, but draw applicants from all over the country. I asked AI “What percent of Morehouse College students are from outside the south?” and it pointed to the collegefactual.com website where under the heading of “Student Life”, it identified Georgia, Maryland, NY, Illinois and Texas as its 5 largest feeder states and indicated that “Approximately 38%-40% of Morehouse College students come from states outside of the U.S. Census-defined South region.”
I found that interesting; I’m assuming Spelman reflects a similar geographic breakdown with Georgia being the largest single feeder state, but with a fairly significant presence of non-Southerners. Are they National LACs or are they in a similar situation as the service academies - people (particularly, white people) will simply tune them out when browsing a list that includes them?
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Sure, a lot of students will automatically tune out HBCUs just as many automatically tune out women’s colleges or service academies. But that doesn’t mean that Spelman and Morehouse aren’t national LACs. They both draw students nationwide, they have name recognition nationwide, they have alumni networks nationwide. So they should go on the list (unless the real name of this list is “The few names outside of the NESCAC that white wealthy Easterners on CC might deign to consider.”)
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White people most definitely tune out HBCUs. It’s seen repeatedly on CC forums. I’ve seen CC regulars warn against HBCUs. Often with the cover of “be careful of this” or “your child may not feel comfortable with such a racial disparity.”
Which I found very telling, because the forum has no problem recommending African-American students attend UCs or other schools which have obscenely low percentages of African-American students. For instance, Berkley has 2% … which coincidentally is the same percentage of white students at well-respected HBCU North Carolina A&T. Yet I’ve seen CC members warn questioners away from NC A&T because it may not “fit” them.
It would be a shame if Spelman and Morehouse were not included and robustly endorsed in this thread. Especially when a college proudly named after a racist man who fought a Civil War to continue slavery is enthusiastically endorsed in this very same thread and consistently recommended to African-American students.
My mother attended Hampton University, a spectacular HBCU Liberal Arts College in Virginia. She earned her BA there, started work and a family, then earned her Master’s at a different HBCU. My grandfather got two BAs, two masters, and a PhD from HBCUs. My father was a professor at an HBCU. My grandmother got her BA at a HBCU women’s college, practically the only college she could have attended in 1930. It’s a shame these fine institutions of higher education get so little respect in the CC forums.
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Weirdly enough, I never associated “national“ with number of students from out of state or out of region. I thought of it more as the concept of a brand. From a “national college“ you could go anywhere to work and employers would be familiar with your college. From a “regional college“ you will have good brand recognition in your region only.
Maybe part of that branding is related to the number and quality of students from any particular state/region that go off to those national schools vs regional schools?
At any rate, it seems like the consensus is national is defined as who goes into the school. I was thinking about it as where those students go after school.
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This is how I’ve envisioned it, as well. Both Lewis & Clark and University of Puget Sound are on my kid’s list. They are both predominantly out of state students and inside top 100 LACs on USNWR. But they seem to have lower brand recognition than others. I’ve been impressed with both, but when I tell people where my kid is applying, rarely have they heard of them.
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Fwiw, many of my friends who attended Bowdoin, Williams, Middlebury (and the likes) also get plenty of blank stares outside New England/NYC when they mention their alma mater. With fewer grads and no TV coverage of their sports, they don’t find their way into many homes.
On the East coast, the West coast equivalents have the same impact.
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My D26 has had a similar experience talking to people here in TX about Carleton, which I think of as being among the better-known LACs. In the last six months, she has encountered exactly one (1) person who knew anything about Carleton: a neighbor who, unbeknownst to us, graduated from St. Olaf. 
I think college awareness beyond HYPSM is just so greatly driven by TV sports that all LACs simply fly well under most people’s radar.
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Why does anyone care if the general public has heard of a particular LAC? I honestly don’t understand. If someone hasn’t heard of Williams I think that reflects on the person, not on Williams. (Substitute any well known LAC)
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I’ll admit to now knowing much about the selectivity of Spelman and Morehouse, so a quick check revealed that:
Spelman/Morehouse
Admit rate: 23.8% / 33%
HS GPA: 3.97 / 3.6 (unsure whether those are weighted…)
SAT 25/75% : 1100-1320 / 950 - 1160
Contrast both with Beloit College, solidly in the top 100 LACs in most rankings:
Admit rate: 63%
GPA: ~3.4 (I assume that’s unweighted)
SAT 25/75: 1200-1430
In sum, Spelman and Morehouse appear to receive a lot of applications – far more than Beloit – given the discrepancy in admit rate. This likely proves the existence of a national brand for both.
As for the GPA/SAT stats, well… Beloit kids have higher test scores but lower GPAs, generally, than Spelman and Morehouse.
Based on admit rates and GPA, Spelman (especially) and Morehouse belong among the top LACs. According to test scores, not so much. That’s a head-scratcher for me. (high GPA but lowish scores)
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I was making the point in the context of what is national and what is regional as it seems there’s been discussion around that. In that sense, Williams and Bowdoin are considered national, but in terms of brand recognition, still somewhat regional.
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No worries, I was careful not to reply to any particular poster, because my point wasn’t intended to be directed to anyone specifically. Just a general observation 
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Seems pretty obvious that non-Black people usually do not consider HBCUs. Posters here also tend not to suggest any HBCUs unless the student indicates that they are Black (in contrast to frequent suggestions of HWCUs even when it is not known whether the student is White, or known that the student is not White).
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I think from now on, I’ll recommend several HBCUs to a full-pay international student.
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Not a surprise given numerous studies finding demographic correlations to GPA / SAT balance among college applicants.
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED562878.pdf found that White applicants were more likely to be SAT discrepant (higher SAT than typical for their GPA) while Black and other non-White applicants were more likely to be GPA discrepant.
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It is worth noting, for anyone who doesn’t know:
Spelman is all-women, while Morehouse is all-men. So keep that in mind when recommending them.
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It is not always easy to explain or well received but I think that Faculty Dean at Harvard William Kirby summed it up pretty well during the curriculum review that Harvard undertook about 20 years ago.
In his 2005 letter he said that Harvard needed to demonstrate that “we can equal the best small colleges in teaching and inspiration.”
And he followed it up with even more emphasis the following year in the letter that was sent with the report saying “We should aspire that Harvard College prove itself to be the equal in teaching, mentoring, and inspiration to any of the great small liberal arts colleges in the American tradition.”
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While Spelman (est 1881) and Morehouse (est 1867) are each single-sex colleges, their campuses are interlinked with each other, and with Clark Atlanta University (est 1865) which is co-ed, though predominantly female. That provides a total student body of nearly 9K students and includes both male and female students
However, having three distinct, though interlinked, campuses provides three distinct education experiences in a larger shared experience. In its set-up and total enrollment, the Atlanta University System Consortium is somewhat similar to the Claremont Consortium. But I digress in bringing up that comparison
What I wanted to say is the Atlanta University System Consortium campuses will not feel as single-sex an experience as other single-sex colleges. The dorms are single sex, but the students mingle among the campuses, if they choose.
And apparently, if I understand this article correctly, a somewhat joined new dormitory situation is being built.
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