I think that’s a pretty safe assumption…but maybe not in @Joblue’s imaginary world where women applicants avoid the South because of the “tyrannical” reproductive rights regimes
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There are definitely some kids from my kid’s high school who are avoiding red states for this reason. You don’t need to be sarcastic to other posters about it. Different kids have different priorities and there are plenty of schools to choose from.
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Please move on from the off-topic side conversation and return to the discussion of unexpected popular schools.
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I just had a look through our seniors from last year. It’s the first time in a few years since I’ve looked, but it feels like there were noticeably more ivy and other tippy tops than usual, including the first admission to MIT in a few years. Colorado now seems the most popular out of state destination, across various schools there, vs Arizona and Oregon a few years ago. Other than that no real surprises - California (UCs, certain CSUs and privates) remain the most popular by far, with a lot of the rest going northeast.
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Northeastern, Babson, Wisconsin…
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Top-10 ranked public school in Georgia, most kids continue to prefer southern state schools (hard to beat free at UGA). Little interest in SLACs, especially in the northeast. Arizona and, interestingly, Boston schools gaining interest.
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The kids from my school who’ve gone to Eckerd tend to be quirky and outdoorsy and I would guess that they lean liberal. The school being in Florida doesn’t seem to bother them.
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One thing that stands out in our school’s Scoir data…there is very little interest in LACs compared to high quality, private, National Universities. Especially National Universities in urban areas.
I think that the kids are drawn to bigger brand names in big cities. LACs in rural areas that “the common man on the street” hasn’t heard of seem to be falling by the wayside, at least comparatively speaking.
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I think that this holds true for a large chunk of kids and families at mainstream CA public and private schools. The Bay area in particular is National University focused because of the engineering and CS heavy workforce and a population that has a very limited knowledge of schools while being very “brand conscious”.
On the other hand if you check out the “elite” private schools they are loaded with LAC acceptances. Elite LACs are like Birkin bags; “If you know, you know”.
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And in the end obviously a lot more kids are attending research universities versus LACs. That is particularly true when you include publics, but still true if you just include privates.
But this is nothing new, really. Very big picture, go back far enough and most of the US colleges in existence were much more like today’s LACs, and indeed often quite a bit smaller, than today’s research universities. Then the “modern” university model as first developed in Europe started being picked up in the expanding United States, and finally exploded with the Land Grant era (which really took off after the Civil War). A lot of those new modern universities were publics, but not all, and privates like Stanford (and many more) were founded from the start on the “modern” model.
And that was sort of a fork in the road–some of the old colleges decided to more or less retool themselves as “modern” universities, and some decided to continue evolving along the “classical” college path. And there were some new independent colleges formed too, but not nearly like new universities were being formed.
OK, so fast forward to today, and way more kids are going to universities of some sort than such colleges. And in fact, you can see the echoes of all this history in where LACs are located–like, as in they are disproportionately located in the regions which were already pretty far along in terms of school formation before the late 1800s.
So yes, as a whole the university form has been “outcompeting” the independent college form for at least something like 160 years at this point.
And yet many independent colleges, at least the more established ones, are participating in the increase in applications and such, just like their much bigger private university cousins. Because that form has always appealed to a substantial minority of kids and families, and it still is.
It is not just that the research schools are bigger than the LACs.
The research schools might be 3 or 4 times the size of the LACs in terms of student population, but they also get 10 times the number of applications or more.
At least from our school as evidenced by Scoir.
To put those observations in context:
Raw application counts and therefore approximate applications per enrollment ratios are easy enough to check on an aggregate basis with the CDS. This gets a little tricky, though, because to make meaningful comparisons you have to control for other factors. Like, say, region, setting, academic reputation, and so on.
But, say, a Middlebury and a Dartmouth are roughly comparable perhaps. Per the 2023-24 CDS, Middlebury got 13297 applications for what ended up 615 enrollment slots, so a ratio of about 21.6 to 1. Dartmouth got 28841 applications for what ended up 1209 enrollment slots, so a ratio of 23.9 to 1. A little higher, but not much really.
Let’s try something very different–Sewanee and Wake Forest. Sewanee got 5018 applicants for 449 spots, 11.2:1. Wake got 17479 for 1385, 12.6:1.
Let’s see, what else–Union versus Rochester? Union 9295 for 550, 16.9:1. Rochester 21679 for 1543, 14.0:1.
So generally it looks like comparable LACs and private universities usually get somewhat close ratios. Therefore if that is not what is being observed in a certain HS, that means universities do appear hotter than LACs (or LACs colder depending on your perspective).
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Yes. But the OP is asking for “hot schools in your area this year.”
I am reporting specific results for my child’s high school. LACs are not popular at her school. Full stop.
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You are right, sorry. I was trying to provide context, I did not mean to suggest you were not observing what you reported. I’ll edit to make that more clear.
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Let’s stick to the topic of the post and not digress into topics that might turn into debate or argument. Thanks!
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I have seen a trend with our private school with less top kids headed to Alabama than in past years. Typically we send a handful of NMF boys to Alabama while for 2024 more of those boys ended up at our state flagship (which virtually everyone gets in). I do think some of the Alabama/Auburn models are giving less money to top kids which is a factor.
I find popular schools for girls to be cyclical. From our all girls’ schools, one year, 20 girls may go to Miami of Ohio, and the next year, 20 will go to Alabama or Ole Miss. Now that Auburn has gotten a bit trickier for admission, that has prevented a number of kids from applying.
I also think the dynamics of girls in general affect where some apply/attend. If you have three known “mean girls” from the class of 2023 who went to Ole Miss, then it may make a girl from the class of 2024 look elsewhere. While obviously these southern schools are huge, most of the girls in our town who are headed South are very interested in the Greek system so girls that are already in the system are an influence.
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Our school saw the same trend with Bama.
Did Bama reduce its level of merit scholarships? I am not sure, but this may be the culprit.
That and Bama has dropped from a Football Megapower to a mere Football Superpower. 
I have heard that the University of Arizona has also cut its merit scholarships a bit and I expect a lower level of OOS interest as a result.
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Yes, Arizona reduced the top two merit amounts from $32k and $30k to $20k.
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