We got back from my 15th college reunion weekend earlier today, and I’ve spent the afternoon dozing off in front of European championship soccer and enjoying sweet, sweet central air conditioning. I had a great time, but didn’t get a whole lot of sleep. Also, ordering Colonial Pizza at 1am continues to not be as good an idea as it seems at the time.
As a part of the cult festivities, there was a run-down of the various accomplishments of the class (slightly more doctors than lawyers, almost as many children as members of the class), which included the statistic that 97 of the 550-ish members of the class of 1993 are married to other Williams alumni, and that 32 of those 97 are married to other members of our class (that is, 16 couples).
Like a lot of context-free statistics, though, I’m not really sure what that means. 17.6% of the class marrying within the college seems like a large number (it’s certainly higher than the fraction among my immediate circle of friends), but then “We met in college” is one of the more common relationship stories out there, so it might be fairly average. And given the reputation of some religiously-affiliated schools as marriage markets, it might even be relatively low.
This seems like the sort of thing that somebody ought to have studied, but I’m not sure howI would find that information, other than by throwing it out to the Internet. So, Internet, is that figure a clear indicator of the cultishness of Williams alumni, or just a meaningless statistic?
I’m not entirely sure that “nobody else would have ’em” is the same thing as “cultishness of Williams alumni”.
Please post a follow-up if you get lots of good feedback. I get an alumni magazine from my high school (NC School of Science and Mathematics), and it’s alarming sometimes how many people marry a classmate.
I would have thought the numbers would be even higher. I vaguely remember hearing that the top two places for meeting ones spouse were college and work (work being #1).
Anecedotally, I recently attended a reunion where, among the folks I hung out with, the fraction of folks who married a fellow alum was around 70-80%, but this particular group of people is pretty far from the mean by number of different metrics.
So, Internet, is that figure a clear indicator of the cultishness of Williams alumni…?
Hmm. The number was probably a lot lower back in the days before the school went co-ed.
According to a 2004 study cited by Professor Norval Glenn (Sociology, U. of Texas-Austin), via the Yale Daily News, your class is pretty average these days (right around 15%). According to the piece it used to be higher (around 40% up until 1955).
http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/19553
I’m guessing that the Williams numbers are a bit higher than most other NESCAC schools, mainly due to Williamstown’s relative isolation from other colleges. Would it be safe to predict that the school with the next highest number of pairings with Williams grads would be Bennington College?
I’m guessing that the Williams numbers are a bit higher than most other NESCAC schools, mainly due to Williamstown’s relative isolation from other colleges.
I’d think that one of the Maine schools would have us beat, there…
Would it be safe to predict that the school with the next highest number of pairings with Williams grads would be Bennington College?
I’m going to say no, on the grounds that I can’t recall ever meeting anyone who attended Bennington College. I do recall a fair number of guys who had girlfriends at Smith or Holyoke, so one of those might be a better guess.
But my collection of anecdotes doesn’t constitute data, so I couldn’t say for sure.
When I was a freshman, our dorm of 75 guys had a “sister dorm” of about 75 girls. A huge percentage of social activities involved interaction between our building of guys and that building of girls, back when we were all 18 and 19 years old. That is where my wife and I met. Though we’ve lost track of many of our old friends, I think we ended up with 9 married couples out of those 150 people. That’s 12% of that group that married someone they not only met in college, but that they met their freshman year. Oh, and I believe those marriages all ended up happing 3, 4 or 5 years after we all met. (It was 4 years later in my case. We met the first month of school and my wife had graduated by the time we married.) Basically this group of 150 people produced so many good friendships, that by the time people started thinking about marriage 4 years later, they ended up marrying those good friends from years before.
I read a little squib somewhere, years ago, which argued the hidden purpose of graduate schools was a eugenics program to foster marrage among graduate students.
Ordering Colonial Pizza at 1am is the best idea youve ever had!
Ordering Colonial Pizza at 1am is the best idea youve ever had!
That may be true. It doesn’t speak well for my other ideas, though.
Sorry about that. Particularly for the part where we harassed the delivery guy who showed up with somebody else’s order…
I’m nothing has changed in nearly twenty years. I expect a few beers on your 20th.
Hi Chad!
I’m doing my dissertation on this very question (what is the rate of same-college partnership in US). Your statistic is surprisingly close to the national average. Let me know if you are still interested in this topic…
thanks.
Karly
Hi Karly!
I would be incredibly grateful if you could point me to a source of stats for rates of same-college partnership. Specifically, I would like to get the stats for Wheaton College (and national average). Thanks in advance!
Ivana