Yale recently released Class of 2022 Profile. The data on one section surprised me: Geographic distribution by residence:
Northeast 32.2%
Middle Atlantic 9.3%
South 13.3%
Midwest 11.4%
Southwest 5.3%
West 14.5%
Other (incl. int’l) 13.7%
The Northeast region got 32.2%, unbelievably, which is equivalent to 1578*30.2% = 477 students. The region contains the following 6 states:
Vermont
Maine
New Hampshire
Rhode Island
Massachusetts
Connecticut
I know for the first 4 states each typically got a single digit number. Therefore, Mass and CT together have about 450 first-year students. However, the number of the enrolled Yale freshman students from Mass is only about 100. That means Yale enrolled about 350 freshman from their home state. It is hard to believe.
Population of the states:
Vermont 0.624M
Maine 1.336M
New Hampshire 1.343M
Rhode Island 1.060M
Massachusetts 6.860M
Connecticut 3.588M
Please notes for Harvard class of 2021 (#freshman: 1687), only 1787 x 16.5% = 278 enrolled freshman from Mass and CT.
Using the Census Bureaus definition of the northeast, the region includes nine states: they are Maine, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania. Does Yale use a different definition?
If not, the number sound right given that NY, NJ and PA are included…
I am wondering whether your definition of “northeast” is different from that of Yale’s? I think your states are for “New England” and NY, NJ maybe even PA should be included in your calculation?
I got the info of US regions from a text book. The released Yale class of 2022 profile has a Mid-Atlantic Region, which includes New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York. In this region there are two big states Pennsylvania and New York; each of them has population more than the entire New England. However, the profile says this region only got 9.3%, even more unbelievably. I will contact Yale Admission Office asking for an explanation.
I agree there’s an error there. Yale takes a lot of kids from Connecticut, but not 25% of its class. A recent common data set online showed about 7% of the (old-size) non-international entering class from Connecticut – that would be fewer than 80 students. And it takes a lotta-lotta kids from NY and NJ, not to mention DC and its suburbs, far more than 9% of the class.
Apart from one outlier year with 103 students from Connecticut, the range was 70s-low 80s. There were never as many as 180 students – maybe 17% of domestic students – from New England (which according to the OP matches the definition of “Northeast”). Meanwhile, NY and NJ alone represented 140-170 students every year, roughly equivalent to all of New England.
Historically, what would make sense would be to have about 1/3 of the class from the “Northeast,” i.e. New England plus the Middle Atlantic states. And considerably more than 14% from the “West,” including at least California, Oregon, and Washington. They don’t get roughly the same number of kids from the West and the South. So I think there was some screw-up in those numbers, with the “Northeast” number probably close to accurate, but the “Middle Atlantic” number not supposed to be there and representing some limited double-counting, and everything else distorted by that. I strongly doubt there was some ginormous shift in geographic distribution this year.
I don’t think it’s an error; I think it’s how they are defining terms. If they meant New England when they list Northeast, they would have said New England. My guess is that they are including either the parts of NY/NJ that are a subest of the NYC metropolitan area, or the entire states of NY and NJ.
But I suppose someone can always call Yale and ask.
Well, “Middle Atlantic” has a pretty standard meaning, and it’s NY, NJ, PA, DE, MD, DC. So there’s clearly an error in counting for “Middle Atlantic,” since NY alone represents a good deal more than 10% of the class year after year, and NJ, PA, and MD together also represent 10+% of the class every year.
Following on @JHS post and link in #7, here is a link to very detailed data on Yale demographics, although it is for the period from 1975-2000. https://oir.yale.edu/sites/default/files/pierson_update_1976-2000.pdf. If you go to Section D, you will see that students from the state of New York consistently out number by a significant amount the students from any other state (Table D1) and indeed all of New England in almost all years (D-3). I’d find it hard to think that the demographics have shifted that dramatically in 1 year, although it is interesting to see the general pattern of a shift from the NE/MidAtlantic to the South and West. The link also shows interesting patterns on legacies (D-4), test scores (D-8) and cost (L-1). Just paid this semester’s tuition room and board which was pretty much what my parents and I paid for all 4 years!
Whatever weird definitions they are using, it’s pretty consistent with what they did last year for the class of 2021:
The materials linked by @BKSquared include precise definitions of more regions. “Middle Atlantic” there – which would have been consistent with Yale’s usage throughout the 20th Century at least – is defined as NY, NJ, PA, DE, MD, and DC. But that’s clearly not how they are defining it now. Trying to make the numbers work, I’m guessing “Northeast” means New England, NY and NJ, and “Middle Atlantic” means PA DE MD DC VA.
