Princeton University Students Switching?

[Cameront9]

Having spent 5 weeks at Christ Church for a study abroad program, I would have loved an Apple store in Oxford. But as it was, a trip into London took about 40 minutes. You could get to the Apple stores there in less than an hour.

Whereas here in Texas, even though Dallas is only a little further from where I live than Oxford is from London, it takes at least 2 and half hours to drive there--more with traffic....God I wish we had a train system like yours....

In any case, in the last three years, 5 of my friends have gotten Macs....So it is spreading...

Hey I studied at Princeton and it was a pretty impressive place. However, when i was there macintosh was a foreign word. That was only a few years ago.

What bugs me is that I am now at Oxford, which by the way is number two or three in the world, that Macs are under represented. In fact there is no store, virtual or otherwise in the whole of Oxford!!!!! How smart is that????

How about a nice big juicy shop on High Street!!!!! Or even next to the Bodleian!!!

Bring it on apple

 

[parenthesis]

At CU-Boulder we got network stats from the first couple weeks of school. Mac registrations are continually going up (though I don't remember the exact numbers right now) in the residence halls (so, first-year students)

 

[Steven1621]

I can also say that the incoming class at my college was 60+% mac. Granted, tutition here is like $43,000 and the student body is about 1600, so this is a not a broad sampling of the population. Still a good sign, though.

 

[Eraserhead]

Hey I studied at Princeton and it was a pretty impressive place. However, when i was there macintosh was a foreign word. That was only a few years ago.

What bugs me is that I am now at Oxford, which by the way is number two or three in the world, that Macs are under represented. In fact there is no store, virtual or otherwise in the whole of Oxford!!!!! How smart is that????

How about a nice big juicy shop on High Street!!!!! Or even next to the Bodleian!!!

Bring it on apple

There is a virtual store: apple.procureweb.ac.uk

tbh Oxford (when I was at the uni in the summer) has quite a few Mac users, probably 10% of the researchers were Mac-users, at least compared to Warwick Uni, but they aren't terribly Mac-friendly.

Oxford blatantly needs an Apple Store, they'd get lots more Mac users if their was one.

 

[VAmin]

Nice...my Uncle is a head professor of Chemistry at Princeton and he said that he used to use Macs all of the time there back in the day, but no one uses them anymore. I'll be sure to let him hear these statistics

Which professor? I'm majoring in Chem here.

 

[OdduWon]

the whole reason i switched back was because i wanted to go to calpoy san luis obispo and geard they were mac based. as an archutecture student i used autocad and revit so had to buy a dell. it 1 hd burned out ran on 1 and it crashed in a year. now that i know dell is crap. i got a twin 2.7 powermac G5. love it . seem that almost every one at poly have a mac. they sell them in the store at student discount and they have good configurations.

 

[thedude110]

LOL @ Princeton - A mere 10th in world university rankings. Far from the impressive 9th of Imperial College

Muh?

Princetonians, in my experience, are fratboys, prudes, and associated squares--by far the worst of the Ivies.

because of

link

Ignore the first definition ... they get better after that ...

 

[budugu]

Price at the Univ vs. Price outside

The general problem with this estimation is that the mac prices are the cheapest at the University computer stores while highest for PCs. The same Dell notebook that costs less than 700$ w/ coupons etc has a price of 1200!! in the Univ IT store. That has been a trend over the last few years. Hence the number of people buying PCs at the univ stores is steadily decreasing as people are now much more aware of the general prices. Ofcourse there is also a genuine rise in the mac sales (i contributed by gettin a black mac book).

 

[Doctor Q]

Some departments at some universities actually recommend Macs over PCs. But, like Mac purchases in general, that's a minority.

 

[0098386]

I don't understand the importance of this. A university in a country I don't live in has started to buy more Macs? Colour me unimpressed.

 

[jholzner]

It's the same here at the University of Illinois @ Urbana-Champaign, particularly in the computer science department. Powerbooks, MacBooks and MBP's everywhere - and while I heard a lot of Mac hate, even from myself, a few years ago - that's almost completely evaporated.

We also just got a second (well a real) Apple Store/resaler - and for only being a 10x10' store, I rarley see less than 4-5 people in there browsing.

Hey, I've been to the Illini Apple Center. Nice place but a bit small. I graduated a few years ago but still have my student ID. I show them and I get the discount. Actually, the first time I purchased something there I brought a friend 'cause he's still a student but they didn't even ask for ID.

 

[Bye Bye Baby]

jealousy???

I happen to have the displeasure of knowing a good many more than I'd like to, and I'm telling you there's no way that a full 45% of that student body are blue-blooded Mac users. Princetonians are a people lacking utterly in subtlety and charm, and even poorer in aesthetic intuition. They're the people who pose with upturned collars! I can't stress strongly enough: These people aren't Mac users. They're switcheurs.

So you didn't get in???

 

[Bye Bye Baby]

Convenience

But seriously, with all the time we spend studying, who can afford to go into the city and buy a computer????

Sorry, I'll stop BSing. But at least it's good for a laugh!!!

Having spent 5 weeks at Christ Church for a study abroad program, I would have loved an Apple store in Oxford. But as it was, a trip into London took about 40 minutes. You could get to the Apple stores there in less than an hour.

Whereas here in Texas, even though Dallas is only a little further from where I live than Oxford is from London, it takes at least 2 and half hours to drive there--more with traffic....God I wish we had a train system like yours....

In any case, in the last three years, 5 of my friends have gotten Macs....So it is spreading...

 

[bluebomberman]

I happen to have the displeasure of knowing a good many more than I'd like to, and I'm telling you there's no way that a full 45% of that student body are blue-blooded Mac users. Princetonians are a people lacking utterly in subtlety and charm, and even poorer in aesthetic intuition. They're the people who pose with upturned collars! I can't stress strongly enough: These people aren't Mac users. They're switcheurs.

Has it occured to you that your smug elitism and gross stereotyping is exactly why lots of people hate Ivy Leaguers in the first place?

You should at least recognize that time change. Some Ivy League schools were aggressively phasing out Macs less than a decade ago, and as recent as five years ago. That's enough time for the undergrad population to turn over several times.

 

[krykert]

Has it occured to you that your smug elitism and gross stereotyping is exactly why lots of people hate Ivy Leaguers in the first place?

You should at least recognize that time change. Some Ivy League schools were aggressively phasing out Macs less than a decade ago, and as recent as five years ago.

My point exactly. Square institutions like Princeton and Yale are well known for, well, being square. It's no surprise a distinct minority of students there are Mac users (even if some of the rest are switcheurs). Take a walk around an Ivy League school with a student population in command of a more comprehensive understanding of aesthetics--Harvard, Brown, or especially Columbia with its boho-beat appeal--and you can't help but notice the difference. Students at these schools, unlike those at Princeton, are natural-born Mac users.

That, in short, is why it's wrong to paint all Ivy Leaguers with the same broad brush. You're not a bigot, are you?

 

[technicolor]

Well my school is 100% Mac, and I happen to go to one of the top art colleges in the country. We also get better discounts than the normal edu store and have our own Apple rep.

Beat that Princeton!

But in all reality, this is great news. I also dont see any reason to distinguish between a born mac user and a "switcheur". That is just silly.

 

[bluebomberman]

That, in short, is why it's wrong to paint all Ivy Leaguers with the same broad brush.

So it's okay to generalize about Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Brown, and Columbia, but not the whole Ivy League? Please. Have you considered *not* generalizing, period?

And for the record, I switched two years ago. So I guess I'm a switcheur. Sorry if I don't meet your standards of excellence. I'll just go on using my iMac, not because I enjoy it, but because I wanna hook up with a Princeton sugar mommy.

 

[STLSigns]

Any news about more Macs being sold is good news to me. Over the summer I moved my DSL and Phone # to a new location, it took a week for them to make the switch so I had a Dial-Up # for that week. The person I spoke with when getting that # wanted to know what kind of computer I was using and when I said Mac OSX he said "...more of you guys out there than I thought".
He's even noticed more people calling with Macs. Cool.

 

[rwalk]

So it's okay to generalize about Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Brown, and Columbia, but not the whole Ivy League? Please. Have you considered *not* generalizing, period?

Exactly. Took the words out of my mouth... erm, fingers.

 

[Eraserhead]

I don't understand the importance of this. A university in a country I don't live in has started to buy more Macs? Colour me unimpressed.

But nearly 50% of the students use Mac's in a few years time it could be 50% of students at UK universities, which is a huge deal, after that it could be 50% of computers , especially given the rate Apple's improving their OS.

 

[xPismo]

But nearly 50% of the students use Mac's in a few years time it could be 50% of students at UK universities, which is a huge deal, after that it could be 50% of computers , especially given the rate Apple's improving their OS.

Good to see, go Apple. I foresee a change in the post production world with all the Final Cut Pro users in college right now... no doubt this same effect can happen in other industries when students start using Apple products.

End of line.

 

[pallas42]

My point exactly. Square institutions like Princeton and Yale are well known for, well, being square. It's no surprise a distinct minority of students there are Mac users (even if some of the rest are switcheurs). Take a walk around an Ivy League school with a student population in command of a more comprehensive understanding of aesthetics--Harvard, Brown, or especially Columbia with its boho-beat appeal--and you can't help but notice the difference. Students at these schools, unlike those at Princeton, are natural-born Mac users.

That, in short, is why it's wrong to paint all Ivy Leaguers with the same broad brush. You're not a bigot, are you?

Ahem. Anyone who says that Yale is "square" and Harvard is not has obviously never experienced the two colleges. And yes, I can say this because I am a Yale student who chose Yale over Harvard. Additionally, I really don't know what a "more comprehensive understanding of aesthetics" is, let alone what it has to do with mac usage. And, for the record, fully 35% of people here at Yale use Macs, and the large majority of freshmen I know who bought a new laptop got an MB or an MB pro. Also, I would argue that trying to paint Yale and Princeton with the same brush is also incorrect, and it is even more incorrect to paint Harvard and Columbia with the same brush. It is pointless to generalize ANY two colleges together, especially schools with such varying social, educational, and cultural philosophies.

EDIT: Oh, but don't take my word for any of this. I switched to Mac from Linux, so I guess I'm not a real Mac user.

 

[Eric5h5]

I don't understand the importance of this. A university in a country I don't live in has started to buy more Macs? Colour me unimpressed.

I'm unimpressed that you're unimpressed. There's more to the world than your own backyard, and anyway, did you read the whole thing? Does the word "trend" mean anything?

--Eric

 

[kansaigaijin]

students who are buying PCs won't buy them at the Campus stores, so nobody has any idea what the real percentages are.

Students who buy Macs will buy them at campus stores because it is the convenient place to get the student discount.

 

[arn]

students who are buying PCs won't buy them at the Campus stores, so nobody has any idea what the real percentages are.

Students who buy Macs will buy them at campus stores because it is the convenient place to get the student discount.

While that may be true, we're comparing apples to apples when it comes to year-over-year sales. This is the trend at the same place:

2003: 15% mac sales
2004: 25%
2005: 38%
2006: 45%

It's possible there are outside factors regarding PC sales that may have changed over the 4 years, but it's not mentioned.

arn