86.7% caucasian?!?!?!?!?!?!

<p>Goblue, what do you make of W&L misstating the number of 2012 American minority students attending on its quick facts student profile on its website? Check the number it states on the website versus the total from page 56 of the Fact Book. It is off by 5 students.</p>

<p>My point is that College admissions is a business. No matter what an institution aspires to be, they care about bringing in $$ year after year above. If you are ignorant enough to think that schools want to waste admits on students who regularly say no then you don’t understand the application process. The majority of the students who are admitted are White, Wealthy students because they can pay full tuition. Simple as that. When a student checks off no to “Do you intend to pursue need-based financial aid?” on the common application they become immediately more attractive. My college guidance officer said that its equivalent to 100 pts on the SAT or 1 point on the ACT. </p>

<p>If you read the Washington and Lee financial aid creed it states:</p>

<p>“Any admitted undergraduate student from a family with income below $75,000 will receive full tuition without loans. He or she may also be eligible for additional assistance without loans for room and board, depending on demonstrated need. Transfer students are not eligible for the W&L Promise.”</p>

<p>key word admitted. When applying using they automatically know your annual income and whether or not you seek financial aid. <em>BAM</em> rejected.</p>

<p>While I agree the numbers are disproportionately low, I don’t see anyone making a similar thread on Colgate’s board, who is ~73% white 4% asian 4% black. The only thing that differs Colgate from W&L is the fact that W&L has little to no international students while Colgate has 9%. Maybe people want to make this thread because hey, this school is in back country virginia and named after a confederate general so we can make assertions like this. Notre Dame is similar to Colgate, all the ivy league was like that ten years ago. I think what these schools lack is exposure to prospective students, not exposure to modern ethics.</p>

<p>Heh, Berkeley is like at 23%. W&L might have some acceptance standards that asians get a disadvantage at.</p>

<p>Do you think that white southerners are only applying to W&L and no other top ranked LAC? plenty of white southern students are accepted and choose to enroll elsewhere.
The yield for white students and monority students is not that different, especially considering the student body is 87% white.
That is not an ideal environment for any minority, and I would expect the yield for minorities to be even lower than it already is.
And true, I am not an Adcom and I do not know what the admissions is looking for. However, there are some quanifiable elements such as SATs, Class rank,Rigor, and ON AVERAGE, asians tend to outperform all other groups in these areas. You dont need to be an Adcom to realize there is some serious bias going on, and you are delusional if you think otherwise.
As for Colgate, 73% white is a big gap from 87% white. Diversity is diversity, and I am sure that if Colgate did not have the international students, they would not replace them all with white students.</p>

<p>In my experience the Asian students who apply are not at the level you imagine. They tend to be of lower qualifications hoping they can get into an up-tier school. The incredibly strong ones still want to go to a better name place and they get in. Even the lure of the Johnson Scholarship or generous financial aid don’t do much to attract them with any real interest. There are a good number of Asian students invited to the Johnson competition every year and few take the offers given. W&L needs stronger entering statistics to attract more kids of the type you describe. However, they will need to be multi-tasking types not kids who solely want to spend time in the library. There is a large contingent that picks schools by classification (highest tier: Ivy, Stanford, MIT, etc.) and/or SAT (Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, etc). It’s not a good judgement metric but that’s what is done.</p>

<p>goblue. Let’s just go ahead and say it. You have a chip the size of Manhattan on your shoulder. You are making assumption after assumption after assumption and you came to a conclusion without any factual basis for such conclusion. </p>

<p>Question–have you even attempted to call the admissions office to get an explanation and maybe even ask for more data??? Or are you going to continue making accusations without any basis for your conclusions.</p>

<p>Puzzle78</p>

<p>Do you have any data to support what you are saying? What is your “experience the Asian students who apply are not at the level you imagine?”</p>

<p>Although I do not go as far as Goblue to conclude that W&L admissions is racist, Goblue does not come to his conclusion “without any factual basis…”</p>

<p>These are Goblue’s facts:</p>

<ol>
<li>Minority admission rate is less than 10%.</li>
<li>White admission rate is 34.5%.</li>
<li>In general Asians have higher test scores than any other group including Whites.</li>
<li>W&L is actively recruiting minority students.</li>
<li>W&L claims to want diversity on its campus.</li>
<li>The admission rate of minorities and Whites have been pretty consistent over the past 5 years.</li>
<li>The Asian presence is only 3% at W&L.</li>
<li>The Asian presence at top schools is many times higher.</li>
<li>The general population of Asians in the United States is 6%.</li>
<li>Asian population at W&L is half the general population.</li>
</ol>

<p>Goblue is claiming that if W&L wants to increase its diversity, it needs only to increase its admission rate of minorities out of the current pool of applicants but W&L hasn’t over the past 5 years based upon its own numbers. </p>

<p>Just increasing the admission rate of Asians from 10% to 20% would increase the freshman Asian presence by two fold but W&L has not done so for at least 5 years based on its own data.</p>

<p>Goblue points to the above facts and the admission’s office lack of doing a simple thing as to raise the admission rate of Asians to the average admission rate of the university to come to his conclusion. So, Goblue does use strong facts to come to his conclusion.</p>

<p>As for you, wlpoppa, you have provided no facts to counter Goblue. Please state one fact that you have used to support your claim that is counter to Goblue’s.</p>

<p>Your only “fact” was that African Americans score 20% less than Whites on standardized tests resulting in those applicants being unworthy of admission to W&L. However, this is speculation since you do not have the data of the exact scores of this group of applicants to W&L. You were just guessing based upon the general statistics of African American test scores.</p>

<p>Given that a significant question has been raised, what have YOU done to clear this matter up? Have you contacted admissions “to get an explanation and maybe even ask for more data?” Or are you going to continue denying Goblue’s accusations without any basis for your conclusions?</p>

<p>If I am incorrect about the facts, please correct me.</p>

<p>For me the numbers Goblue has uncovered are disturbing and at this point require more information before I can come to any conclusions but I cannot fault Goblue for his conclusions given the facts he has outlined.</p>

<p>Rl.</p>

<p>The title of the thread is “W&L is racist!”. Goblue came to a conclusion without any facts that allow such a conclusion. You MUST know the qualifications of the candidates to determine if there has been a pattern of discrimination. There is zero data on qualifications of rejected candidates. There are many, many top 50 lacs (I listed several above) that are underrepresented with minorities. (By your logic, all these other under represented lacs are racist). And, there are many that are over represented. That’s how the math works. Every school will not look exactly like the rest of nation demographically. </p>

<p>Start using some logic and take the emotion out of the discussion.</p>

<p>If you are concerned, call admissions. Get an explanation and report back to us. Otherwise stop with the ridiculous accusations.</p>

<p>Puzzle, your statement is unfounded and you have no evidence to back it up. Infact, I would even say the opposite is true. Most top schools have severe overrep of asians, which makes it HARDER for asians to get in. These top achieving asians are rejected at a much higher rate than the rest of the population, and i know for a fact that there are countless 4.0, 2300+ asians who are denied from all the top schools simply because they are asian. Thus, many of these top scoring asians end up at top 20 liberal arts colleges because they are rejected from all the ivies+top universities. I know that plenty of high achieving asians apply to w&l since it is a top LAC, but they are still rejected while whites are accepted at 3x the rate</p>

<p>I have been using nothing but STATISTICS provided by the university itself. Calling the admissions office will achieve nothing, do you expect them to actually give anyone a straight answer on this sensitive issue.
You claim that W&L is not racist and strives for diversity, but the data directly contradicts this statement. Please give me a valid answer why whites would be accepted at 3.5x the rate of asians, and I will gladly delete this thread. But until then, I stand by my statement that the admissions office is racially biased against minorities because the data supports my claim, while you have provided no evidence on the contrary</p>

<p>Here is my argument.
Hispanics and Blacks on average score the lowest on standardized tests, therefore it makes sense that these groups would be accepted at a lower rate than the overall 19% acceptance rate of the university. This is true, and they are accepted at a rate of about 8%.
Next, Whites score higher than blacks and hispanics, so their acceptance rate should be higher than blacks and hispanics. This is also true, since whites are accepted at a rate of 34% vs 8% for blacks an hispanics
NOW, asians score the HIGHEST OUT OF ALL GROUPS, so one would expect them to be accepted at a higher rate than blacks and hispanics AND whites. the acceptance rate of asians should be more than 34%(the acceptance rate of whites) because asians on average score higher on have higher gpas than whites. Instead, Asians are accepted at 10%, barely above the rate of blacks and hispanics, when asians score on average 400 points higher than these 2 groups.
If the difference was a few percentage points it would not be an issue. However, 10% vs 34% is a HUGE GAP and supports my claim of racial bias.</p>

<p>Not one trained scientist or statistician in the world would agree with your conclusion as you have no data regarding qualifications of the applicants. Your conclusion is unsupported. Pure speculation. Period. </p>

<p>Have you called the admissions office for an explanation or to ask for additional data? If not, please go away.</p>

<p>Maybe they are accepted more because they have better resumes??? Could that possibly be the answer??? Honestly. </p>

<p>Have you called the university to ask for additional data??</p>

<p>It is a total cop out to say they won’t be honest. Give it a try. Maybe you will be surprised. </p>

<p>Sounds like you have an ax to grind. Did someone at wandl offend you?</p>

<p>Please goblue. Provide us with the proof that “plenty of high achieving Asians apply and are rejected”. You have none. Pure speculation. You also don’t know if the white that are accepted have better resumes than the Asians that are rejected. Give it a break. If you don’t like wandl, don’t apply. </p>

<p>Have you called admissions yet? Don’t be scared. They won’t bite.</p>

<p>I have read these posts and the conjectures on the supposed racism of the admissions office. While not perfect the office is not racist, nor is the school. Puzzle78’s observations are correct. I am an insider and see the statistics behind what is published. The level of incomplete in all minority applicants is fairly high. The really strong Asians are looking upmarket, get in and go and don’t complete their apps. The ones left are not as strong. Some of them have very strong SAT’s but only a fair program. Might have English as a second language and trouble with it as well. That is not a recipe for gaining admission at W&L. Could we use more minorities of all varieties? Yes. Are we working at it? Yes. Are we throwing money at it? Yes. I would like higher entering stats to attract the kind of student talked about here. That would help. We need to be on page 1 not page 2 for quality students of all backgrounds but are not there yet.</p>

<p>general, how are we expected to believe that you are an insider at W&L? You have only 5 posts in total, and you have been a member since 2009. I really dont believe that you actually have inside information about W&L.
Also, in what way is W&L “working at increasing diversity” and throwing money at it?? The stats have been flat for 5 years, and asians have been accepted at a 10% rate for the last 5 years. Sounds like the only thing they are working on is keeping their white population above 87%
Also, in regards to other minorities (blacks and hispanics), W&L should be accepting slightly lower qualified minorities in order to maintain diversity. Every other school does it. Even at harvard, the blacks and hispanics often have lower scores than whites and asians. Are you telling me that out of the 3/4 thousand minorities that applied (50% of the entire applicant pool) W&L could find less than 100 qualified minorities?? I call BS</p>

<p>Wesleyan-(Ranked 17)
37% of the admits are students of color (not including international)</p>

<p>Haverford (ranked 9)
8.1% African American/Black
15.0% Asian/Asian American
12.3% Latino
0.3% Native American
14.9% Identify themselves as Multiracial</p>

<p>Vassar 2017 (Ranked 14)
Asian 97 14.5%
Black 51 7.7%
Latino 60 9.0%
Native American 0 0.0%
Total 208 31.2%
Total including non-citizens of color 250 37.5%</p>

<p>Statistics for Harvey Mudd 2017 (Ranked 16)
African-American/Black: 2.3%
Asian-American/Asian: 30.1%
Latino: 12.3%
Native: 0.46
White: 40.2%
Multiracial: 7.3%
Unknown: 7.3%</p>

<p>These are some of LACs that are ranked close to W&L by USNEWS. FYI: W&L is 14. Some of those schools are ranked higher, some are lower, but they are peer schools.
As you can see, all of them have MUCH MUCH higher levels of diversity than W&L, and many of these colleges are literally in the middle of nowhere, so dont tell me that the qualified asians and hispanics all flock to these LACs and do not apply to W&L.
Most of these schools are in the 30-40% diversity range while W&L is in at 13%. People keep saying that W&L is trying so hard to make diversity but THESE LEVELS HAVE BEEN THE SAME FOR 5 YEARS!</p>

<p>Mudd is a California Engineering only school. I am willing to bet that they limit the number of asians on campus and that the numbers would be higher if they took students by scores only. It is probably a bad one to use. Ohh and the student body has almost no black people.</p>

<p>RACIAL/ETHNIC DISTRIBUTION (AS OF 10/2012)</p>

<p>African-American/Black: 1%
American Indian/Alaska Native: <1%
Asian-American/Asian: 22%
International: 8%
Latino: 7%
White: 54%
Multiracial: 2%
Unknown: 5%</p>

<p>And the person that said that admissions should treat people the same even if its not the persons first choice school, well that is the dumbest thing I have read in this thread and this thread is stacked full of dumb.</p>