Student Mac ownership at Cornell more than tripled over 5 years

It may have slipped past last month, but Daring Fireball reminded us of September's TidBITS article about the student computing profile at Cornell University. Since 1999, Cornell has required students to report their OS when signing up for Ethernet connectivity in campus housing; prior to '99 the reporting was voluntary. Back in the early 1990s, Mac-using students made up more than a third of the self-announced connected population, but by 2000, after the start of mandatory registration, that number had dropped to only five percent of the base.

Times, as they say, have changed. 2007 stats show that 21 percent of the attached student computers are running Mac OS X, a dramatic increase over the past few years. This isn't necessarily a surprise, but it's still nice to see. It also aligns with reports noted by MacRumors yesterday which show dramatic share gains for the platform at other schools, including Princeton (60 percent of on-campus sales this year are Macs), UVA (~~home of the "BigMac" massively parallel XServe installation~~ oops, that's Virginia Tech, not UVA!) and many more. I guess the old adage is true: when you've got them by the iPods, their hearts and minds will follow.

View Tags

Source: http://db.tidbits.com/article/9177

Categories

Education

It may have slipped past last month, but Daring Fireball reminded us of September's TidBITS article about the student computing profile at...

Add a Comment

Sign in »

25 Comments

Filter by:

Chris Bell

"The designers, engineers, programmers all use Macs."

There is no OS X version of Pro/Engineer, CATIA, and I believe Unigraphics so many Engineers do not use OS X.

October 07 2007 at 2:29 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

mark

Between 1988 and 2002, I was the only one among friends who was using Apple. Now I would say about half my friends ditched their PC's. Most of them are students or have just graduated. Most of them didn't have an iPod when they bought their Mac. Though clearly on of the reasons is the exposure Apple got with their iPod. Before nobody listened to my Apple promo-talk.

October 07 2007 at 5:59 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Brian Reading

Over here at University of Houston, there's at least one in every class these days...

October 07 2007 at 5:46 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

ooda

Here at Murdoch University the Mac contingent has grown substantially as well. That said, SPSS support would be nice...

October 06 2007 at 10:32 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Dan

Hotel School strongly advises against getting a Mac because of certain software. Same thing for Johnson School. Engineering recommends PC over Mac, see http://www.engineering.cornell.edu/student-services/academic-advising/orientation/computer.cfm.

October 06 2007 at 10:27 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Steve Pearson

None of the departments at Cornell require windows, not even the engineering school. Sure, if your in ECE it might help I'm a freshman in ChemE at Cornell and a lot of my engineering professors use macs.

October 06 2007 at 8:10 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Lee

Yeah - It's VA Tech that had the XServe cluster. UVA just has a bunch of old 386s on top of empty Zima boxes.

*Hokies for life*

October 06 2007 at 6:21 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Dave

Last I heard, Mac Book Pros are a REQURIED purchase for the Park School of Communications at Ithaca College (my alma mater), right next door to Cornell.

While I think requiring students to pay for _anything_ substantial beyond tuition is ridiculous, it is telling that one of the top comm schools in the nation is a Mac school (and has been for awhile!).

Also - if there was a GIS system that ran on the Mac, you'd see far more of them being used by Rutgers Urban Planning students.

October 06 2007 at 5:46 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Fritz Laurel

Like #3 said -- just to be clear, "Big Mac" is at Va Tech, not UVA.

Cheers,
FL

October 06 2007 at 5:36 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Catt

Go Big Red! Its nice to see my alma mater on TUAW also nice to hear that the Mac usage have gone up since I graduated. I like going up to the Mac store now and again to check out the new Apple wares only wish that it was bigger and that some of the sales rep knew what they were talking about. Yeah the Macs stand out in the bookstore big time which is probably contributing to the increase in usage other than the regular adverts and general Apple buzz...

October 06 2007 at 4:42 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply