I meant this kind:
Not this kind:
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I grew up in Seattle and went to college “back East” in the early 1990s - I’m 5’2" and in Seattle I was always short, but I was shocked at how there were people who were routinely my height and regularly shorter on the East Coast.
It’s changed over the years, but it blew my mind at the time that I was no longer the shortest person in every room out there, I was above average!
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Ok that’s hysterical. Clearly, not where my mind was! 
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We’re in NJ and my daughter has topped out at 4’11", and I’m amazed that she has friends/classmates/co-workers who are her height and even shorter! It’s something I never would have noticed if my kid was average size, but since she stopped growing and felt dismayed by her final height, I’ve been noticing people all over who are her size and smaller. They’re everywhere around these parts!
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https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/average-height-by-state
Interesting. I never thought about it before, but looks like NJ is short…(among others)
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I have to assume that at least part of this is that immigrants from different countries tended to gravitate towards certain states (and sometimes still do), and origin countries can have marked differences in height.
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Also I’m partly basing this on my country of birth being one my grandparents immigrated to and I always felt “short” there, but when I visited a country where a lot of my ethnicity are living I remember looking around a long queue of people all around my height and thinking “this is literally my tribe”
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Yes alot probably has to do with where people came from and settled and genetics. My sons are 6’5" and 6"6" and have Dutch,German,Swedish,Scottish and English ancestry. The Dutch,in particular, are kind of known for being tall.
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I’ve read some analyses of height by region, and a lot of the variation is due to factors such as height correlating with race and ethnicity, but the big one is poverty levels (which, of course, have correlates with race and ethnicity, this thing is statistical confounds all the way down)—lower childhood nutrition, even by a little bit, results in lower adult height.
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I read this article, “The Height Gap,” when it first appeared in The New Yorker. It’s fascinating. The Height Gap | The New Yorker
“The Netherlands, as any European can tell you, has become a land of giants. In a century’s time, the Dutch have gone from being among the smallest people in Europe to the largest in the world. The men now average six feet one—seven inches taller than in van Gogh’s day—and the women five feet eight.”
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My kids want to know their secret. 
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Out of curiosity, what are the comparison visits? I would guess that students on campus in the summer probably trend nerdier than the general student body at pretty much any school. Not that I’m disputing the general observation - we have an undergrad in South Bend and it’s definitely a relatively square collection of kids (not that that’s a bad thing), even though tailgating and beer are a large part of the social fabric there.
Oh yes, most definitely! Our wonderful guide was a local young girl who attends there - super smart girl with glasses. Also very religious. Looked like Hermoine as well! Other guides were similar. Of course we knew this was summer and in a way we were observing more visitors than kids who attend.
It’s an amazing campus. Amazing. Mining is still considering ED-ing there even though I don’t think it’s a good match for him.
At northwestern we were the only non Asian family touring and most guides were Asian as well, so my kid decided school had no diversity. I know had we visited during the school year, all of those schools would have felt so very different.
We also saw Vandy, Indiana, Northwestern, Michigan.
Interesting, thanks for the response. We had, and have heard from others who’ve had, a similar experience and impression at Northwestern. Our D23’s takeaway from Vandy was, somewhat to our surprise, that everyone seemed too stressed out, and Michigan struck her as a little tough socially due to its size and her apprehension about Greek systems. She’s the prototype “socially active but somewhat of a nerd” ND type, I guess!
Check out some of the threads elsewhere re: REA at ND. It doesn’t have a universal reputation as providing the traditional small leg up for some demographics as it might at other places. And obviously comes with the downside of preventing your S from using an ED application somewhere else if there’s a place he’s decided he loves above all others. Best of luck either way!
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So Michigan is massive, but apparently buses run every five minutes connecting north and south campus, and the classes are stacked in a way that you can always make your class.
Vandy, on the other hand, has a 20 minute walk between music building and campus and my kid’s friend (who is very happy and also very busy and overwhelmed) is constantly late to his academic classes.
Certain profs from conservatories told my kid that connection was everything for his instrument at Northwestern. We happily scrapped it off the list.
You can find my replies in the other thread:
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Interesting you say that about NU. I visited twice- first time last year for an admitted student’s tour with my S24 and second time with my younger daughter.
Both times, we were the only Asian family in the group. There were a couple of people who I am guessing were high school counselors from China (but they did not come with students). And both times, the students touring us were a mix of nationalities (American, European, and South American), but no Asians.
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If I had gone to a football game with this intro when I was in HS, my college search would have been over 
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THIS is what I’ve been trying to convey to my (in-state, just doesn’t love it for some reason) kid! But he’s all “you know they call Clemson’s stadium Death Valley…” Sure! Not saying Clemson doesn’t have an amazing football tradition. But VA Tech is nothing to sneeze at kid!
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I think summer visits don’t give a good picture. I wish we had had opportunities to spend time on various campuses during the school year.
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