Just where will the 351 graduates of the Mercer Island High School Class of 2012 be headed this fall? Everywhere but mostly here. Graduates of the class of 2012 will be attending schools and colleges in 30 states in cities as close as Bellevue and Seattle and as far away as Honolulu and Jerusalem. This fall they will settle in Corvallis, Chicago and Kalamazoo. They will study art and design, engineering, music, science and language.

Just under half of the Islander grads will stay in Washington state for school. The next highest state preferred by graduates is California, followed by New York and Oregon.

One hundred fifty-eight students will attend college in state, 30 more than last year. Of those, 60 are planning to attend the University of Washington, 16 more than last year. Next, 29 students will become Cougars attending Washington State University in Pullman, a dozen more than last year. Fifteen students will attend Western Washington University in Bellingham.

A group of 18 will attend six private Washington state colleges. Nine of those are planning on attending Seattle University.

Twenty-six students will attend Bellevue College, up from just 10 graduates in 2009. Eight more will attend other community colleges in state.

One hundred students will remain in the west, outside of Washington state and west of the Mississippi River. Two will attend schools in Hawaii and five in Canada.

Sixty-seven Islander grads will head south down Interstate 5 with 18 students attending college in Oregon, and 49 students will attend college in California. Seven are planning to attend college in Arizona. One student each will attend school in Wyoming and Utah, two to the wilds of Montana and two to Texas.

Nearly one-quarter of the class of 2011, or 77 students, attended college east of the Mississippi River. The class of 2012 is sending 55 students east to attend colleges from Tulane University in New Orleans to St. Olaf in Minnesota. One student will enroll at New England College in New Hampshire, and one to Rollins College in Florida. Fourteen Islanders are planning to enroll in college in the state of New York and eight in Illinois.

It is a three-way tie for those traveling the furthest; Angad Bashani will head to India to attend the College of Engineering in Pune; Wo Meijer will attend Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, and Uriel Cohen will be in Israel at the Yeshivat Netiv Aryeh.

Nearly two-dozen students have plans other than college right away. There are some who plan to work, and others as yet undecided about their immediate plans. Four Islanders are headed to the military, with Alana Maher and John Lee joining the U.S. Marine Corps, and Michael Amico and Sumuel Vu joining the U.S. Navy.

Editor’s Note: Special thanks for this information goes to Islander Ken Glass, who has gathered this information for the past several years for a map made for the MIHS newspaper, ‘The Islander.’