Maybe with faculty, especially those who travel much. I think students will lean toward the macbook as being better value for the money.

How many students spend their own money for college expenses? How often are laptops for students gifts from parents, friends, relatives?

It's not just about the money, it's about capability. The $999 MacBook has a 2.4GHz CPU and a 250GB hard drive, and the same GPU.

I work in a medical school neuroscience lab with a bunch of grad students and postdocs. Everyone has a Mac laptop, paid for by the lab. Two postdocs have MacBooks. Everyone else has a MacBook Pro. Except the PI who runs the lab, who has an MBA. The only one in the lab. He values small size and weight more than anyone else. He also travels more than anyone else.

I don't see many MBAs around campus.

Agreed. Students are also likely to have it as their only machine - and IMHO the MBA is a very enticing supplementary computer, but I'd be loathe to have it as my only.

A worthwhile bit of anecdotal evidence. However, grad students and postdocs are hardly representative of college students as a whole.

Aren't MacBooks the notebook of choice for university students already? At least when I was in school a couple years ago it seemed like they were.

I thought about this this past week when I had to go to the local uni's CS department for something. I peeked into a half dozen classrooms, lots of laptops, mostly dells, a handful of Toshibas, less than 10 MacBooks...the most I saw in one class was 3.

Likewise when I went to the student union to grab some dinner. Hundreds of students all with laptops open, a handful of Macs. I'd say at rates about at the same as market penetration...~10%.

It may be a geographic thing. Certain regions may make MBPs more appealing, or certain schools may subsidize the purchase more. I've noticed similar rates at other schools in the area.

Anecdotally, I saw well over 50% (out of a few dozen) at a Stanford student union last weekend.

What I get from the previous comments: Mac adoption affected by socioeconomic status.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was a wide disparity between Mac adoption rates at state schools vs. private schools.