#Instafamous
TCU snaps picture-perfect honor as most Instagrammed college in Texas
Here's some news that gets all the hearts in Fort Worth: Texas Christian University is the most Instagrammed college campus in Texas. That's according to AT&T, which released findings of a new survey just in time for back-to-school selfies.
To come up with rankings of most Instagrammed schools in each state, AT&T's All Home Connections team first culled the database Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System to find universities with more than 7,000 enrolled full-time students in the 2017 fall semester. (TCU's enrollment was 10,489.) They then scoured the most popular hashtags for each school to determine which college campuses saw the most student-use of a particular hashtag.
#TCU Horned Frogs, stand proud.
"Nearly 33 percent of its students have at least one #TCU post," an AT&T spokeswoman tells CultureMap.
Their report does not break down the most Instagrammed places or people on campus, but a quick check of the 35,000+ current postings using #TCU shows recent posts about football uniforms, a snazzy new building for the Neeley School, and, of course, dorm move-in.
"Whether your school of choice lives up to the hype or not, Instagram gives you a pretty good idea of what to expect — even down to football tailgates and popular campus events," the report says.
Which other schools' hashtags made the list? Just north of the Red River, #boomersooner captured the top spot in Oklahoma. To the east of Texas, #LSU made the cut, and to the west, #UNM.
Here's a bit more of a breakdown just for fun, AT&T says. "Nothing prepares you for college like a whole list of (mostly useless) information," they say. "If there’s a lull in conversation, whip one of these bad boys out of your pocket. You’ll make friends in no time. "
- The most popular hashtag overall is #rolltide for the University of Alabama. Nearly 60 percent of its 33,000+ students have at least one #rolltide post.
- The University of Southern California and the University of Florida both offer master's programs in social media. It's no wonder #USC and #UF made the list.
- Ohio State University is the largest college that made the list, with 52,057 students enrolled in fall 2017.
- The smallest college is Murray State University in Kentucky, with only 7,118 students enrolled in fall 2017.
- Four of the 51 schools’ most popular hashtags reference their mascots. All have powerhouse athletic programs: #rolltide – The University of Alabama, #gobeavs – Oregon State University, #boomersooner – University of Oklahoma, and #fightingirish – University of Notre Dame.
- All the universities they looked at are older than Instagram, and seven are the oldest college in their state (some even older than the United States itself):
Yale, founded in 1701
University of Delaware, founded in 1743
University of Hawaii at Manoa, founded in 1907
Harvard, founded in 1636
Princeton, founded in 1746
Brown, founded in 1764
University of Wyoming, founded in 1886