EclectEcon

Yesterday, Craig Newmark linked to this article which rates the attractiveness of the women on various university campuses and then ranks the universities from 1 - 50.

As I scanned through the article to which he linked (yes, scanned; I'm old enough that there's no point in lingering), it struck me that the top 10 list includes only southern schools. Further, the schools ranked 11th - 20th are all from the south or from the west coast.

Where, I wondered, are the schools from the Midwest ranked? And sure enough, there were several in the list from 21st - 30th.

Why might the Big Ten and similar schools be ranked so low? To say there are fewer or less attractive women in such schools is not an adequate answer; the question is, if so, why?

Is there a selection bias in the admissions policies of southern schools (submit a photo with your application)?

Is it possible that women who are very attractive prefer warmer climates to show off their attractiveness, whereas those less well-endowed(?) are happy to attend universities where the weather mandates covering up more [with the attendant "I don't much care anymore" attitude by young males when the warm weather finally arrives]? If so, what will be the impact of global warming on these rankings in the future?

Is it possible that the selection bias arises because the women in the Midwest are every bit as attractive as elsewhere but there are fewer photos of them from which to judge because there is less warm weather in the Midwest? [an informal poll of colleagues tells me there's much more cleavage seen at schools in warmer climates, so this possibility has some merit]

Is it possible that the women in the Midwest and North are every bit as attractive, potentially, as the women of the South and West, but they choose to invest less in the raw materials of looks and more in the raw materials of other forms of human capital? If so, why?

Is it possible that there is an inverse correlation between female attractiveness and female intelligence and that the schools in the Midwest are better schools, attracting (!) smarter but less attractive women? and related,

Is it possible that northern men care less about superficial beauty, preferring the inner depths of knowledge and personality [yeah, sure], and hence the women respond to those incentives accordingly?

Or is it possible that southern men care more about superficial beauty, ...?

Or do Northern and Midwestern schools for some other reason attract women who, by the standards of the piece to which Craig Newmark linked, are less attractive?

How would Canadian universities come out in this ranking? Are the most beautiful women more likely to attend schools on the west coast? Rumour has it that Country Club U [aka UWO] in Ontario would do very well in this ranking, though.

Addendum: A radio commentator I happened to hear last evening was very confident that many of the photos accompanying the original article were of models wearing clothing with the school logos. If so, that raises other possibilities, such as:

Are administrators of southern and western schools able to hire better-looking models? If so, why? Is it because better-looking models prefer to live in the south or west coast? And, again, if so, why them and not the less attractive models?