The 378 students graduating from Mercer Island High School last Thursday night will attend colleges in 34 states from Bellevue to Miami, San Diego to Maine.
Of those students, 229 will go to school in the states that border the Pacific Ocean. Of those, 148 will stay closer to home in Washington state, and 68 will head south to California.
This year, 15 students are set to attend Bellevue College and seven others will attend community college or technical schools in state. Last year, 26 students said they planned to attend Bellevue College, up from just 10 graduates who chose the school in 2009.
Forty-five grads will attend the University of Washington, with 15 headed to Western Washington University and two dozen to Washington State University in Pullman. Seven graduates will attend Gonzaga University in Spokane.
In California, eight students will attend Chapman University in Orange, Calif., with seven each headed to Santa Clara University and the University of Southern California. Six each will enroll at UCLA, Stanford University and the University of San Diego, and five at the University of California at Berkeley. Another seven will attend the University of Oregon in Eugene.
In total, 65 members of the class of 2013 will attend school east of the Mississippi River, down from 77 of the class of 2012 who planned to head east last year.
As a result, a smaller number than usual are headed to the northeast corner of the nation — east of the Mississippi River and north of the Mason-Dixon line. Fifty students will attend college in those states, with a dozen each in New York and Connecticut.
As their talents and interests vary, so do the destinations of Islander grads far and wide.
Three students are headed to MIT and one student will attend the Colorado School of Mines. Two students are planning on attending Ole Miss (the University of Mississippi) and one will head to Carroll College in Helena, Mont.
One student is headed for the University of Hawaii and another to Centre College in Danville, Ky.
Fifteen students have plans other than college for the coming year. Four are enlisting in the military.
Samuel Valerio will join the Air Force; Raoul Generaux, the Coast Guard; Charles Yollin, the Marine Corps; and Kayla Mogil, the Israel Defense Forces.
Three have said they will be working. Two are headed on mission trips and five are taking a ‘gap year.’
One student remains undecided.