<p>IMO, basically, the Northeast is densely populated and spills over to the rest of the country. Consequently it is overrepresented in every region. Popular midwest and southern schools will get Northeast spillover, but that won’t generally be the case in reverse, to nearly the same extent. This would tend to make NE schools more regional, all other things being equal.</p>
<p>That’s just my hypothesis, I haven’t tested it.</p>
<p>Cornell’s regional proportion may be yet higher than some other peer NE universities (don’t actually know, didn’t compare) because some of its colleges offer reduced tuition to New York residents, hence New Yorkers are more highly represented there than might otherwise be the case. This might be counteracted in some cases by it drawing better than some schools from regions further afield. For just these three schools, I found the differences in representation from the regions furthest away from all of them- West & International- to be interesting.</p>
<p>But the facts are what they are. There is a regional flavor to all three of them,to various extents, and this is where your classmates will be from. And potentially where a lot of them will go back to. Whether that’s good, bad or indifferent is up to you.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt’s midwest proportion is not that surprising if you think about it, the school is only about four hours from Ohio.</p>