Since the beginning of my college search over two years ago, I have contemplated what the average demographics for graduating students look like. I have long felt that the performance that the college preparatory program which Rockhurst offers doesn’t match the performance which its’ supposed prestige claims it does. I took the time to compile the results into a few data points, as shown below.
I was curious as to how the distribution of students spanned the country. As a competitive-minded student myself, I have long been aware that often, highly competitive schools sit along the coastlines. As such, I expected Rockhurst to have a large portion of its students attending schools near the East and potentially West coasts. However, the data from the graduating class of 2024 says otherwise.
Looking at another format of the same data, it is increasingly clear how the distribution of students leans towards the midwest.
Seeing this, for me, was alarming. However, it was not exceedingly surprising. I was aware, both from conversations with my peers and a subjective analysis, that most of the class would be remaining in the midwest. That being said, having zero students attending schools in states bordering the Pacific Ocean, and only a handful in the East Coast, was truly surprising. After further analysis, I have determined the following:
- Schools in Kansas alone comprise 27.7% of graduates. (64/231)
- Schools in Missouri alone comprise 32.9% of graduates. (76/231)
- Over 54% of graduates are attending schools within 150 miles of Rockhurst. (126/231)
- Only 5.6% of graduates are attending schools in states bordering the Atlantic Ocean (13/231)
- Shockingly, 0 students are attending schools in states bordering the Pacific Ocean.
- The furthest west any student is attending school is along the -112 degrees longitude line.
- A total of 1 student is attending an Ivy League school.
For a school which prides itself on academics, these statistics are disappointing, to say the least. I have always pushed myself to achieve highly, however I was unable to achieve successes in my college application process, despite my efforts. For the sake of transparency, below are my personal college decision results:
College Results
Without knowing my personal details, it may be hard to judge whether I simply overshot my chances with these selective schools. However, my application contained high honors in all courses in high school, National Merit Finalist status, countless extracurriculars, and professionally-reviewed essays. I had no shortage of qualifications, yet even schools with seemingly high acceptance rates did not admit. In addition, despite the troubles I faced with admissions, I was only able to meet with my assigned college counselor at Rockhurst twice in two years, during which I was reassured that I would be successful.
While I do not wish to be critical of Rockhurst’s ability to prepare students for higher education, and while I believe that Rockhurst creates an extremely high standard of education which enables students to perform well at nearly any school, I do believe that the school’s college acceptance portfolio is lacking. I am not sure of the reasons for this performance, nor will I make any assumptions. I do believe, though, if Rockhurst wishes to maintain its long-standing tradition of academic excellence, college placement needs to be prioritized higher. The fact that in a graduating class of 9 National Merit Finalists, 5 National Merit Commended Scholars, 33 Advanced Placement Scholars (14 of whom achieved AP Scholar with Honors or higher), 2 President’s List scholars, and countless other academic awards, there are only a handful of students attending schools that would even be considered selective, means that somewhere, Rockhurst’s priorities are misaligned.
I am open to any criticism of this report, whether positive or negative. If anybody has conflicting facts, feel free to contact me for correction. In the ongoing mission of transparency in my work, linked here is a GitHub repo with all code and statistics used in the generation of the graphs and data above.
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