College Mail

Because I'm a total nerd, I've been plotting recently what colleges have sent me informational mail. That's currently a pile about 5 inches thick, with about 350 pieces of mail from 120 colleges.

Some observations:

A large number are concentrated in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. This makes sense. From New Haven to Washington DC, though, is littered with colleges that want me, in a path that exactly follows the I-95 corridor.

Several other highways also go past multiple colleges that want me:

I-89 in New Hampshire and Vermont

I-90 in Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and Illinois

I-85 in the Carolinas and Georgia

The strangest geographic artifact, though, is that the majority of the colleges that have sent me mail form a gigantic teardrop shape. Its peak is Bowdoin College in Maine. It extends westward through New York, Pennsylvania, the Midwest, and its tip is Texas A&M. Through New Orleans, up I-85 in the South, and up the I-95 Corridor in New England. It's 500 miles wide and over 2000 long, and there's only one inside it: Vanderbilt University in Nashville.