These were the hottest colleges I see from the seniors at my sons’ HS this year (nashville suburb) :
Belmont
UTK
Ole Miss
Mississippi state
Samford
U of AL
Western KY
UTC
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Several kids from our area in TX heading to Colo School of Mines. Really, anywhere in CO has been really popular - I know of a few heading to Boulder and one to the Air Force Academy, and we have friends who are looking at engineering programs in smaller schools like Ft Lewis and Mesa. But Texans love Colorado in general, so maybe this isn’t unexpected.
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More Wisconsin and Brown this year from our NJ high school, with 5 attending Brown.
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Was this a shift from previous years, or are these typically the most popular?
There was a definite trend in D24’s graduating class of students picking not-expensive colleges & universities.
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Florida fell off the map due to politics, women’s health care, demonization of the humanities if they weren’t teaching what some bureaucrat deemed to be the “truth”. U Vermont- always got some attention locally- seems to be hot/hot/hot (I guess global warming helps? It doesn’t get as cold as it used to!)
I laughed at vwlizard’s post about Stonehill. It’s always been popular in my area; used to be seen as a solid backup for the kid who wanted BC but didn’t have the stats- now it’s popular in its own right!
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It’s funny because we live in MA and we usually don’t have anyone attending Stonehill. We had 1 kid attend in 22 and I can’t remember any before him (I was on school committee for many years so sat through multiple graduations and saw all of the matriculation lists). This year there are five. Graduating classes are usually around 120-130 with about 70% attending 4 year institutions.
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Are these schools only of interest to Black students in your high school or area, or have non-Black students in your high school or area also become interested?
As far as I know, all of the students from our HS going to HBCUs are Black.
I grew up in the Northeast and graduated from HS almost 40 years ago. Back then, it was almost unheard of for kids from my HS to go to an SEC school. I still live in the Northeast, but it’s not at all uncommon for kids from the local high schools to head off to Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Georgia, University of Florida etc …, plus ACC schools like Miami, Clemson and Wake. While this started before Covid, I think Covid definitely accelerated the trend. Southern schools generally had much more lenient Covid restrictions and a lot of kids who (understandably) didn’t want to go to “Lockdown U” headed South.
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Here in Western NY our school of 350 students saw a good chunk going to Univ of South Carolina, John Carroll and Dayton. Of course the SUNY schools are where most students go.
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My daughter chose Clemson, first from our NJ high school, partly due to COVID and our strict restrictions (to be fair, our area was hit hard). Clemson had the worst COVID policy, mandatory testing every week. She managed to avoid it most of her first year, was vaccinated and had it two or three times already, she and her roommate tested positive outside of the weekly tested so quarantined themselves in their dorm (there was a quarantine hotel that they’d have to stay for 10 days, those who lived in SC were required to go home). Missing that many days of classes was not ideal.
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Bucking the trend here, I guess. Lots of kids saying they were going various places but ASU (local) dominated. Also interesting, around 130/500 received CTE certificates. Competitive high school with several going to prestigious places… Dartmouth, Penn, Pomona, NYU, Purdue, Naval academy & overseas— but many staying close and a huge drop in California schools.
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I live in the Midwest and the University of Iowa was particularly hot this year. Some are calling it the Caitlin Clark effect. 
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We are from the Northeast and the Southern schools seem to be blowing up. South Carolina and Clemson to name a few
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Affordable and local seemed to be the trend for S24’s graduating class. The state flagship has always been the leading school, but this year nearly half the class plans to attend it. Usually one or two students attend the local community college, this year a dozen plan to do so. Schools in bordering states were popular. A few students were undecided on graduation day (mid-May). Many fewer students planned to attend ivies and other big name schools than in previous years.
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Are many of them commuting there to save money?
At our high school, about 1/3-1/2 of the graduating class will be going to ASU and most of them living at home in order to not have to pay room & board. Plus with the auto-merit scholarships, the tuition ends up to be highly discounted for a lot of them. Similar situation at U of A…about 1/3 attending there because of discounted tuition.
From the looks of it, a pretty fair # of the students attending out of state picked colleges that have a lot of merit scholarships. One student, for example, attending Univ of Alabama-Huntsville for cheaper than attending an AZ in-state public university because his GPA & test scores got him a really great deal.
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Philly suburban school here: the south is big! Vandy, Clemson, Florida, Alabama, Elon. Another interesting trend: a drop in Ivies - not kids not getting in, but fewer choosing to apply there and then many choosing not to accept an Ivy admission. Meanwhile, the class (about 300 kids) had a lot of Amherst, Williams, Tufts, Middlebury, and other SLACS.
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I’ve noticed that many of those going to SLACs from NYC suburban schools are ED athletes. Is this true at your school?
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