3 states absent from Class of 2015

Within the University’s undergraduate population, there is a wide range in the total number of students that each state sends to campus. While New Jersey, California and New York sent 194, 155 and 144 students, respectively, to the University as part of the Class of 2015, only one student each from Mississippi, Utah, Idaho, Montana and North Dakota joined them.

Yet the large differences between the total numbers of students who matriculate to Princeton may be determined by factors beyond disparities in the population size of the states, such as discrepancies in the interest of each state’s students in the University.

The geographical breakdown of the University’s student population is determined at three junctures: when students submit their applications to the University, when the University accepts a percentage of those students and when a selection of those students decides to enroll at the University. The Office of Admission declined to provide the total number of applications by state, saying it did not have the data. But Dean of Admission Janet Rapelye said that, because the Office of Admission does not admit students on a state-by-state basis, the University does work harder to recruit qualified students from underrepresented states to apply to the University.

In certain states, a greater effort

Several years ago, the Office of Admission noticed that students from West Virginia were consistently not being represented in the incoming freshman class. In response, the Office of Admission attempted to attract more applicants from the state by traveling with Harvard and the University of Virginia in the fall, visiting high schools, holding information sessions and dining with counselors.

“We’ve been doing it consistently for that last couple of years, which is why I think you’re seeing the numbers at two or four because before it was zero,” Rapelye said. “We’ve been really trying to get students out of West Virginia.”

Two students in the Class of 2015 are from West Virginia, two fewer than the four students from the state in the Class of 2014.

But the Office of Admission is not just trying to increase the number of students from the states with single-digit representations. Rapelye noted that she would also like to get more students from one of the most represented states, California, which sent 155 students in the Class of 2015 to the University.

“I actually think that given the size of the population, we always want to recruit more students from California,” Rapelye explained.

Rapelye added that the Office of Admission is aiming to attract more applicants from California in order to better match the large number of graduating high school seniors in the state. There were about 420,000 students that graduated from high school in 2011 in contrast with the 110,000 high school students that graduated in New Jersey in the same year, according to the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education.

Despite the Office of Admission’s attempts, the total number of students from the Golden State dropped over the past year. When the Class of 2014 arrived on campus, 201 of those students hailed from California. This made it the most represented state, more than the 178 from New Jersey. But the next year, 46 fewer students matriculated to the University from the state.

Director and Educational Consultant of IvySelect College Consulting Michael Goran said that he sees more interest in applying to Ivy League schools in students from California. Part of this is due to the population size of the state, but he also said the economy is pushing students eastbound.

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Goran added that the financial troubles afflicting the University of California system has “tarnished” the schools’ reputation, encouraging more students from California to apply — and matriculate — to East Coast universities.

However, Rapelye explained that if the economy improves, more interested students from California would matriculate to Princeton because parents will be more able to pay for plane tickets to send their children across the country.

The Office of Admission also tries to send its 20 staff members to the less populated states like Wyoming and Idaho because they believe they “have to work very hard at getting many of those students to apply,” Rapelye said.

While the Class of 2015 claims no students from Wyoming, one student from the state is part of the Class of 2014. There is one student from Idaho in both the Class of 2014 and the Class of 2015.

However, recruiting students from those areas of the country is less thorough than the recruitment of students from California, Rapelye said. On the typical visit to a city, which occurs every other year or even every three years, staffers usually spend a day in each city, visiting four schools and going to an evening program during their stay, she explained.

But despite their efforts, the Office of Admission faces an unavoidable reality.

“There are 30,000 high schools in this country,” Rapelye said. “Even if we tried we couldn’t get to all the high schools, or even a fraction of them.”

Making Princeton a “household name”

Rapelye said that part of her office’s challenge is introducing students and families to Princeton.

“What you find when you leave about a 150-mile radius of Princeton is that Princeton is not a household name,” Rapelye said.

On the recruitment trips, the Office of Admission aims not only to present Princeton as a viable option for many qualified students but also to make sure that applicants are aware of the University’s no-loan financial aid program.

“Many of these students have many fine options, but making sure that Princeton is part of their consideration if they’re the top students in their high school is something we want to get across,” Rapelye said.

The Office of Admission also tries to restart the conversation about financial aid every year because they said they cannot assume that students already know about the financial aid program, she said.

In states like Mississippi, which sent three students to Princeton in the Class of 2014 and one student in the Class of 2015, Princeton may not quite rise to the level of a “household name.”

Debbie Carrington, a high school counselor at Murrah High School in Jackson, Miss., said that there were relatively few Mississippi students who even went to schools out of state. Murrah’s graduating class this year has 300 students, and 10 will be going to college out of state. A student from Murrah High School graduated from Princeton in 2011.

“As far as academically, we have students who could very well meet admission requirements at Princeton,” Carrington said. “It’s sort of an unknown.”

Carrington noted that if the students were introduced to Princeton, students would apply. But she said Harvard and Yale are better at distributing information to give to the students than Princeton is. In fact, one of Murrah’s graduating seniors will be attending Harvard in the fall.

While Harvard and Yale “make a big splash” in presenting their financial aid information, Carrington said she is unfamiliar with Princeton’s financial aid program. This is an important factor in the recruitment of students from schools like Murrah, she said, where 70 percent of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch.

But it’s not just Princeton’s distance from Mississippi high schools that keeps students from applying, according to Ann Hendrick, a private college counselor in Jackson. Hendrick noted that many Mississippi students that she works with apply to Grinnell College in Iowa, suggesting that distance and culture does not prevent students from applying to faraway, unfamiliar schools.

“It’s Iowa … which is a million miles from Mississippi and very different from Mississippi,” Hendrick said.

Grinnell has a representative that has been working in Mississippi for many years, Hendrick said. The key to attracting students to apply to a university that is far from home is the presence of other students from the area; high school counselors will also encourage their students to apply to an out-of-state university if they know past students who are doing well there, she said.

“Once you build a relationship with students, and they know there are other people from Mississippi there … you can get kids to attend their college or university,” Hendrick said. “But that takes a huge commitment over time.”

Regional loyalties

The high interest in Princeton and its peer schools is not seen in southern states. About 275,000 students graduated from high school in 2011 in Texas, more than the graduating class size of New Jersey and New York and more than half as many that graduated from California. Yet there were only 45 students from Texas in the Class of 2014 and 36 in the Class of 2015 at the beginning of their freshman years, far fewer than similar numbers from the other three states.

“I think there definitely is some regionalism, a familiarity with the South, a comfort level with the culture,” Goran said. “I think that can definitely play a role.”

Rapelye shared Goran’s viewpoint, noting that part of the challenge for her recruiting team is to encourage students to apply to out-of-state schools.

“Sometimes when we visit some of these state we’re not competing against other [Ivy League schools],” Rapelye said. “We’re competing against an excellent state institution.”

College Confidential Senior Adviser Sally Rubenstone said that she sees a difference in regional loyalty in students in the South compared to the rest of the country.

“I think that a lot of state universities in the South have a magnetic pull that you don’t find in the North,” she said.

She added that in the South, families with “long lines of ancestors who attended college” have allegiances to the flagship university or other prominent in-state school that they attended.

The Class of 2014 represents students from all states except Kansas and North Dakota.

Correction: Due to a design error, a previous version of the graph accompanying this article reversed the years under comparison. The correct graph is available above. The 'Prince' regrets the error.