<ul>
<li>According to Common Data Set (2012).
I ABSOLUTELY LOVE Washington and Lee, but I am very concerned about the University's socioeconomic and racial diversity. I have read in multiple threads that the majority of the student body is rich, Southern, and rich, and Caucasian, apparently. Saying that, is racism a prevalent issue? Would I be a pariah if I couldn't shell out $90 on a brunch tab?</li>
</ul>
<p>Why do you love w&l if you believe its students are racist and elitist? A school is only as good as the students it accepts. Having said that I visited the school last week and found the students to be polite and helpful. I am asian. I think from what I experienced the school should be fine for minorities but it would be nice iif it was more diverse.</p>
<p>I love the Honor System and its small size and its remote location and its politics degree. So i guess that is possible.</p>
<p>I applied to W&L for similar reasons. I like the honor system. I believe students should be treated with respect and that they in turn should respect the school. I don’t know if you realize that W&L is situated next door to VMI so it is feels a bit bigger than the 1800 student school it is. It didn’t hurt that W&L waived the application fee as well. Hope you had the opportunity to apply for the Johnson Scholarship. It would be nice to get a full ride.</p>
<p>As a W&L student, I personally don’t consider racism to be a huge issue on campus. Many of my friends are International students or part of the racial/socioeconomic minority and do not meet the ‘rich/white/southern’ criteria. Although that is certainly the dominant group on campus, it is also not the only group on campus.</p>
<p>You also won’t be a pariah if you can’t shell out $90 on a brunch tab. W&L has many Questbridge Scholars and the Johnson Scholarship brings in a lot of people from different economic backgrounds. I personally would not be at W&L if it weren’t for their amazing financial aid and have not had a problem with feeling obligated to spend exorbitant amounts of money on restaurants, etc.</p>
<p>Hope that helps! Let me know if you have any other questions :)</p>
<p>Most LAC students are rich & Caucasian. But FWIW the majority of students at W&L aren’t southern. I believe it’s closer to 30% (but can’t remember where I read that). Lots of students from the northeast and A good chunk from Texas & California.</p>
<p>From my short visit, I would have to agree with yourlove and nbc. I think discomfort is a you thing and not a racist elitist thing with W&L students. Sorry to hear of a death of a W&L student at hands of DUI driver. My condolences to students, faculty and family of the W&L student.</p>
<p>Its no secret that W&L is a predominantly white college, but many people on here think that they are trying to recruit more minorities to diversity their campus. This is FALSE!
according to their OWN factbook, minorities accounted for 51.5% of the applicant pool and only 16.6% of accepted students in 2012. This means that many minorites apply, but they are getting rejected at a much higher rate than white students. white students were accepted at a rate of 24.3%, while af. ams. were accepted at a rate of 8.5%!!! Some people might assume that the minorities who applied were unqualified and were rejected because of this, but Asians were accepted at a rate of 10.7%, and they are very likely more academically qualified than most white students who gained acceptance (just using statistics here people, no offense intended)
Any thoughts on this?? Here is the link to the factbook. info is on Page 56
<a href=“Washington and Lee”>Washington and Lee;
<p>You are making a very specific accusation based on a broad set of statistics with no detail to back up your claims. Just because an individual applies does not mean that the candidate is qualified. There is no information regarding the SAT scores, class rank, etc included in the data set you reference. Therefore, you cannot draw any conclusions on selectivity based on race. For all you know, the minority candidates had relatively low scores and were unqualified to be admitted to W&L. In fact, that is most certainly the case. The admissions staff and administration includes a number of minority individuals. I hardly believe that they would allow discrimination against minority candidates.</p>
<p>Some schools like Harvard, Stanford and others are “over represented” (compared to population) by students with Asian backgrounds. Does that mean that they are discriminating against whites, African-Americans and others? Don’t think so. They are taking the most qualified applicants just like W&L.</p>
<p>You say you are “just using statistics” when in fact you are not. You are making assumptions based on some numbers from which you cannot draw any such conclusions.</p>
<p>Without the statistics of those applying you are making a rash generalization. The Johnson Scholarships allowed them to buy more names to recruit. Joining Questbridge gave them more names from disadvantaged backgrounds to apply. However, that does not mean those students have had a strong enough academic background to gain admission. The school has no remedial programs and wants students who can hit the ground running and succeed. The students to whom you refer probably have a curriculum rigor problem.</p>
<p>The fact is (look at the SAT score statistics) AA students score about 20% lower on average on the SAT. Only 2% of AA students score above 1300 on the SAT. As a result, there are statistically far fewer AA candidates in the entire population that could qualify for admission to W&L. And with top notch Asian students being over represented at Harvard, Stanford, Ga Tech, etc etc, you would expect that other top notch schools would see some under representation because there are only so many kids that make 1400 or above on the SAT. Those are the real facts.</p>
<p>On average, Asian students score 70 points higher than Caucasian students on the SAT ([SAT</a> scores are flat | Inside Higher Ed](<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/09/26/sat-scores-are-flat]SAT”>SAT scores are flat))
So please dont tell me that out of the 420 Asian students that applied in 2012, only 8.6% of them were qualified to attend, while 25% of white students were qualified.
With regards to other minorities, it is possible that many were unqualified, but based on the acceptance rate of Asians I feel that the same thing is happening with qualified hispanics/blacks. I cannot come up with any other possible explanation other than the admissions people want to keep the school as white as possible, and they are succeeding since about 85% of the student body is caucasian</p>
<p>It seems that many people are saying that W&L is striving for more diversity which I find blatantly false. The problem is not that they do not have enough minorities applying, the problem is that they are accepting VERY few minorities</p>
<p><a href=“Washington and Lee”>Washington and Lee;
Based on W&L’s OWN factbook, it would seem that the school definately has some race issues. Minorities accounted for approx 50% of applicants, but only 16% of acceptances. Even asian students were accepted at 1/3 the rate of caucasians, and statistically, asians are more qualified (on average asians score 70 pts higher than whites on SAT)
Seems like the admissions office has a bias against minorities, and is not trying to increase diversity at all.</p>
<p>The problem is, you have no idea WHY they are accepting few minorities. Yet you came to the conclusion that it is due to racism when there is no way you can draw such a conclusion from the facts you presented. You have no idea where the applicants ranked in terms of scores, grades, etc. </p>
<p>Please get facts straight before making such a horrific statement.</p>
<p>Goblue. Sounds like you are fairly young. Like most young people, you are jumping to a conclusion without any facts. Asians do score higher on the SAT on average, but they are also OVER represented at many top schools. As a result, the MUST be under represented at other schools. That is the only way the math works. You are making assumption not stating facts. You know what they say about people that ASSUME don’t you??</p>
<p>I am using basic statistics/common sense.
Also, all other top LAC seem to have NO trouble recruiting minorites. Amherst is about 50% minorities, and I understand that Amherst is a tier above W&L, but cmon, 50% vs 14%?!?! amhersts acceptance rate is 14% vs W&L’s 19%, so they are not that far off.
Even similarly/lower ranked LACs (vassar, hamilton,wes) ALL have minority populations in the 30% region, so I fail to see any other possible explanation!
Are you saying that qualified minorities apply to all other LACs EXCEPT W&L?? If that were the case, then the 50% sat ranges would suffer, yet most of these schools boast higher sat ranges than W&L.</p>
<p>Also. The simple fact of the diversity issue is that every company, every school, every organization cannot have exactly 13% percent AA, 60% white, 16% Asian, etc. to perfectly mimic the US population. It will never happen. Some will have higher percentages, some lower. On average, AA students score far, far lower than whites on the SAT. As a result, in general, you would expect them to be under represented at top notch schools that only take high SAT kids. Asian students should be over represented as a percentage. And they are. But, they are over represented at places like Harvard, Stanford, etc. Therefore, they must be under represented at other top notch schools.</p>
<p>and yes, I agree that asians will be underrepresented at some colleges, but not at any top lac. Find me a LAC in the top 50 where asians are 3.4% of the population! you certainly wont find that the case at any of W&Ls peer schools, much less at any other top college in the country. Asians will probably be underrepresented at lower tier state schools/ Community Colleges</p>
<p>You are using neither common sense or statistics. You are making assumptions about qualifications with no supporting evidence. There are no statistics that support your position because you have no SAT score or class rank or extraC information on the applicant pool. Big, big difference.</p>