Brown prides itself on its geographically diverse student body, and this year's class is no exception: The class of 2011 boasts students from 44 states and 126 international students from 51 countries, wrote Dean of Admission James Miller '73 in an e-mail to The Herald.
Though students were admitted to the current freshman class from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, no students matriculated from Arkansas, Mississippi, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota or Wyoming, Miller wrote. The most students come from California, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Jersey.
Among the countries sending students to College Hill are Swaziland, Australia, Turkey, Sweden, India and South Africa.
Carlo Coppetti '11 is from Nafels, Switzerland, a rural town in a valley near the Swiss Alps, and is one of only three Swiss students at Brown. "Everyone's like, wow, that's so cool," Coppetti said.
Zachary Smith '11, from Fremont, Neb., said he has encountered surprise and occasional confusion about his home, including comments such as, "Whoa, that's kind of weird," and "Isn't there lots of corn there?"
Nick Jessee '11 is amazed at the attention he gets for being from Anchorage, Alaska, especially, he said, at a place boasting students from so many other unusual places. "You get the same reaction everywhere in the world when you say you're from Alaska. It doesn't matter if you're in Seattle three-and-a-half hours away, in Chile, or Brazil or in Europe. ... I say 'Alaska,' and people are like, 'Oh, really, are you serious?' ... It's just amazing to me," Jessee said.
"But it's a great conversation starter," he added.
Students bring unique perspectives and talents to the Brown community. "People don't know that much about Switzerland, but they all are eager to know more, so I tell them about it," Coppetti said. "I guess what they do know (already) is about Swiss chocolate."
Smith and Jessee agreed that most students from their areas went to area colleges due to financial incentives from their state or because of fears that the East Coast would be too different to tolerate. "A lot of people just like to stay local," Smith said.
Some have been surprised by Rhode Island.
"People would tell me that New Englanders are mean. ... My grandparents are both Japanese, and they both came to the East Coast for college, and they told me discrimination stories," said Gan Uyeda '11, who is from Honolulu, Hawaii. "But so far I haven't seen any of that - everybody has been nice," he said.
"Geography does inform experience to some degree, so students from unusual geographical areas for Brown do bring different perspectives to campus," Miller wrote. But, he added, "As America becomes more geographically mobile, geography is less of an issue than it was even a generation ago. Students today are more likely to have lived in a number of places than was common 20 years ago."
Coppetti, for example, lived in South Carolina for a year during high school, and Jessee has lived in Chile. Uyeda lived in Oregon and California before moving to Hawaii.
"(Hawaii) really isn't that much different from where everyone else lives, I think it's just the reputation," Uyeda said. "People have asked me, 'Do you canoe to school?', 'Do you live in a grass hut?' or 'Do you know how to hula (dance)?' ... I do know how to hula, but I'm bad at it."
