the Sam Jackson College Experience

About a month ago, I wrote about patterns I found comparing Yale and Harvard in Google searches through Google Trends. Well, just today, Facebook released a simply fascinating tool called “Lexicon” which is the same thing, but for wall posts. Computers (not humans!) track the content of every wallpost for words and phrases, and you can search for trends and comparisons over time using this new tool. Very cool, right?

Lexicon shows the number of users that posted each term per day on a profile, event or group Wall. It does not count repeated terms by the same user on the same day. This is to account for the seasonality of Wall posting in general; for example, there are fewer overall posts in the month of December.

My complaint about my previous Google Trends related efforts had been the fact that Google Trends was not targeted enough to college age students to give more precise sampling to *really* show the trends when it came to buzz about individual schools over the course of the admissions cycle. Facebook’s demographics pretty much fix this problem, and the following chart is very exciting.

The greatest influence here can be seen from Harvard and Princeton dropping their early programs. Yale has a huge attention buzz boost in December, but by spring admissions time it is at parity with Princeton (Gasp!) and Harvard has a significant edge in attention. As with Google Trends data, the same incredibly eerie trend occurs where everyone talking about school A talks exactly proportionately with those talking about school B with the same upticks and downticks, with high levels of accuracy.

In general, the same observations as before apply… just nice to see them borne out in slightly cleaner data somewhere else. Read about the patterns I found in the Google Trends data by clicking here, or see below.

Compare with Google Trends data (Red is Harvard, blue is Yale).

I discovered an interesting pattern while playing around with Google Trends: if you compare ‘Yale University’ and ‘Harvard University’ with the tool, there is an eerie similarity in their trend lines. Even minor up and down ticks are mirrored across search terms. See for yourself: trends chart below, Harvard in red, Yale in blue.

The trend is clearer for Google search data, but there are still some pretty strange similarities for the news references (below the main chart). I understand that every time one school does something, the other feels compelled to respond, but the fact that these trends link together so closely is very interesting. My first question was whether much of this might just be seasonal–fluctuations in the course of the admissions cycle. To test this, I compared Yale with a few other schools, trying to eliminate large sports schools as a factor. Georgetown vs. Yale produced fairly similar results to Yale v. Harvard, but not with the same level of overlap.

Years ago I did this same comparison with Phillips Exeter Academy vs. Philips Andover Academy (interestingly, historically they were once prominent feeder schools for Harvard and Yale, respectively) but the results there were not numerous enough to show any significant overlap; the numbers there were probably inflated by vanity searches from the students at either school.

Other interesting trends to take from this data: search volume for both of these terms has declined continually over the years, relatively speaking. Why is this? Is it because people are better able to use the school sites and don’t do as much searching, or is it because of a methodological feature whereby their search volume stays stable but relative to other terms decreases? It’s not clear, but it’s an interesting trend all the same.

International attention is something else to compare. If all the queries came from Australian applicants, hypothetically, that would shift things in the calendar because of their different school cycles. But more realistically, it’s just an interesting reflection of foreign interest. Harvard predictably comes out ahead, but check out these countries which are ranked by how much people are searching for Yale (Harvard comparison):

Google lets us get even more precise, though: down to city level. This is really interesting because we see the rate at which Yale students search for themselves compared to how much Harvard students search for things about Yale. If we then compare this to another chart, showing how often Harvard searches for Harvard, we see that Yale–via New Haven–doesn’t even make the top ten. In other words, Harvard is by some measures more interested in Yale than Yale is in Harvard. Inferiority complex much? : ) (Yes, I realize this is methodologically flawed… just joking).

Finally, we can compare the international chart with a language chart. English is first, then Chinese, then, surprisingly enough, Italian.

Very interesting for a few minutes googling! I highly recommend playing around with google trends and exploring interesting things about your own favorite words, or trends, or schools. Dogs and Puppies beat Cats and Kittens, etc. Have fun, and don’t draw too many sweeping statistical conclusions : )

There has been a 14 percent decrease in the number of Yale students getting Pell grants in the last 8 years, according to Pell Institute senior scholar Tom Mortenson study, reports the Yale Daily News. Dean of Admissions Jeff Brenzell disagreed by citing more limited data which statistics professors at Yale argued were statistically invalid. Instead, it seems he prefers to somewhat cherry pick his data, looking at families % with less than $60,000 a year. Quotes from the article, emphasis mine:

Mortenson said he was especially concerned about the 14-percent drop in Pell students at Yale in the past eight years, given that the percentage of Pell students at Harvard University increased by 53 percent over the same time period, according to his Dec. 2007 analysis.As the percentage of low-income children in the K-12 school system increases, Mortenson said, Yale has a responsibility to help educate these students — a responsibility that it is not meeting.

“The real question is, ‘Who is trying to deal with this huge demographic tide, and who isn’t?’” Mortenson said. “As I look at Harvard’s data, I say Harvard is, and as I look at Yale’s data, I say Yale isn’t.”

Yale’s recent announcement of an unprecedented increase in undergraduate financial aid did not change his analysis.

Mortenson called Yale’s new financial-aid initiative — which dramatically reduces the expected parental contribution from families making up to $200,000 a year and eliminates the need for student loans — a mere “public-relations gesture.”

So… there’s failure all around, but Yale is especially lagging. Brenzel does reasonably point out that some of Harvard’s success with Pell grant numbers could just be that Harvard has a better ability to get them to come, rather than special recruitment efforts; Harvard’s yields are certainly very impressive in general and a Harvard admissions letter can be pretty sticky. But that just means that Yale needs to work harder and reach out more to low income students. This might not be the fault only of the admissions office, it could be that they are not able to effectively allocate their resources to do so without compromising other parts of their mission which are valued more. Luckily, here at Yale… they don’t really have to choose! The university has the resources needed to make significant change here, and if it isn’t moving up the charts on this, it can’t point at Harvard or anyone else and try to avoid blame.

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I am currently working as an intern at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and got a press release hit last week from one project that the center is involved in. The Citizen Media Law Project does a lot of good work providing legal education for people involved in… you guessed it, citizen media. They have a great new site up which gives a very good survey about legal protections and concerns to be aware of in all 50 states–each state has important custom information. In their words:

“The guide, intended for use by citizen media creators with or without formal legal training, addresses the legal issues that traditional and non-traditional journalists are likely to encounter as they gather information and publish their work online.”

“Knowing your legal rights and responsibilities is important for anyone who publishes online. The CMLP’s legal guide addresses the legal issues you may encounter as you gather information and publish your work. The guide is intended for use by citizen media creators with or without formal legal training, as well as others with an interest in these issues.”

So definitely check it out, as well as the CMLP website in general (citmedialaw.org) and the Citizen Media project (citmedia.org). Since we’re all publishing so much and contributing to so many online media these days, worth familiarizing yourself with some of the applicable laws and making yourself well informed of the local laws, whether you’re a total stranger or an EFF member.

I know a lot of people have recently been coming to the site via CollegeConfidential or panicked “Yale 2012 how to survive after deferral” googling. It’s amazing for me to remember where I was last year this time (Exeter, NH) what I was doing (finals) and how I was feeling (more stressed than any other time in my entire life, ever). This past week I popped my head in at CC a little to try to tell people to 1. get off CollegeConfidential at least for the duration of the waiting time and 2. to try to instill some hope and raise some spirits (things which CC often takes away and dashes, I might add).

I saw the other day a post by a fellow yalie (name withheld by request) who wrote a post that I will reprint here, because I think it sends a very good message. I will definitely be writing one of my own as soon as I am done with this massive paper weighing over my head, but for now you’ll just have to hear from an anonymous fellow yalie. I don’t agree with every word, but it’s a pretty good message.

Hi! As a class of ‘11 yalie, i can tell you that lots of people on campus are excited that in a little over a day there will be several hundred new prospective yalies! As a former SCEA applicant, i can also understand how anxious many of you are right now. So before you log on to admits.yale.edu and get what you may think is the most critical result of your life up to this point, i wanted to share some thoughts.

Yale was my absolute first choice when i applied early action. I wanted to be in the northeast, the campus is beautiful, the residential college system really does work (ie, i don’t want to imagine what this semester would have been like if i didn’t have berkeley, but that’s beyond the point of this note), and as much as i hate to admit it, the huge endowment and name are big selling points. Yale also has its share of flaws, and if you have a romantic notion of a perfect life following your admission (as i did), you’ve been misled.

I don’t mean to tell you that you shouldn’t be excited about tomorrow. Yale is a great college and you’ve accomplished something very difficult if you’re accepted. What i do think you should know is that i’ve often thought i could have been just as satisfied, if not more satisfied, with a different college experience. Yale isn’t a perfect place, and yale isn’t “the one.” So if tomorrow at fiveish (for the most eager among you, i believe you could access the results at around 4:15 last year) you don’t see a big blue screen with a bulldog replacing the A in YALE, know that life is not over. Know that for most of us there really is no “one,” and that your college experience will be what you make of it. Know that my sister, who is every bit as smart as i am but went to a college that US News and World Report ranks below their top fifty liberal arts colleges, had a more satisfying college experience than i’ve had this semester. Know that Yale is a great place with interesting people and lots of options, but know that there are lots of great places with similar resources. Know that four years from now, you’re only going to have had one college experience and the quality of that experience is mostly dependent upon the attitude with which you approach it.

So for those of you who do see the bulldog tomorrow, know this: you are very lucky. Visit Yale, live our lives for a few days, and decide if this is the right place for you. The large majority of you will come to that conclusion, and that’s a testament to the magic of Yale. For those of you who don’t see that bulldog, it’s imperative that you embrace what i could not: If you had a realistic shot at Yale, you’re in very good shape and will be admitted to many other colleges, likely including several of Yale’s peer schools. What’s more (and more important), wherever you end up, your experience is contingent upon your outlook and actions more than anything else. There is no “one”, and the one you choose is just as likely as anywhere else to be the absolute best experience possible for you.

Best of luck, wherever tomorrow takes you.

~A bulldog ‘11

[Originally on CC here]

Good luck again to everyone waiting. Try to stay sane. I know that by 24 hours until results were out, I had literally started counting minutes, and that by 12 hours before decisions I was counting–I wish I was kidding–every second… try to avoid that, and try to relax, if that’s at all possible.