<p>Bromfield: One of my D's colleges of interest, Dickinson, I believe is involved with Posse. Unfortunately, my D doesn't qualify because she's not "inner city." She's pretty much grew up in a lily white suburban environment. Considering the low enrollment of black students at Dickinson, I wouldn't be surprised if almost all of them were Posse/inner city. That makes me wonder if my D would fit in.</p>
<p>nyc -- I'm getting there. I'll be adding some additional colleges shortly. As for the inspiration for this thread, it is a bit more complicated than that one sentence implies (I was trying to be polite). But your point is well taken. The percentage and critical mass of a given minority group is a legitimate criteria to use in researching colleges for minority students who may not feel comfortable in a non-diverse environment.</p>
<p>Adding to the list: Pomona, Rhodes, College of New Jersey, Carleton, Grinnell, Macalester, Washington and Lee, St. Lawrence University, Muhlenberg and Reed. Again, I've computed percentages directly from the most recent Common Data Set figures except in the case of Muhlenberg, for which I've made an estimate using figures posted on the UCAN site. </p>
<p>Again, any help in adding to this list of LACs using the format below is welcome. </p>
<p>Williams ( 9.8 %, 29.6 %, 6.7 %)
Amherst (9.5 %, 30.5 %, 7.1 %)
Swarthmore (8.5 %, 36.1 %, 6.6 %)
Pomona (8.2 %, 34.4 %, 4.0 %)<br>
Haverford (7.5 %, 27.0 %, 3.7 %)</p>
<p>Rhodes (7.2 %, 14.2 %, 2.0 %)
Wesleyan University (7.0 %, 26.0 %, 6.0 %)
Trinity (CT) (6.3 % , 17.8 %, 3.9 %)
College of New Jersey (6.2 %, 22.2 %, 0.1 %)
Drew University (6.2 %, 19.0 %, 2.0 %)</p>
<p>Bowdoin (6.0 %, 26.8 %, 3.0 %)
Lafayette (5.2 %, 15.1 %, 7.1 %)
Goucher (4.9 %, 11.6 %, 0.5 %)
Carleton (4.8 %, 20.9 %, 5.7 %)
Grinnell (4.8 %, 17.1 %, 11.3 %)</p>
<p>Macalester (4.6 %, 18.1 %, 12.4 %)
Holy Cross (4.4 %, 15.7 %, 1.0 %)
Dickinson (4.4 %, 14.2 %, 5.6 %)
Gettysburg (4.4 %, 8.5 %, 1.8 %)
Colgate University (4.0 %, 12.6 %, 5.6 %)</p>
<p>Franklin & Marshall (4.0 %, 12.0 %, 9.4 %)
Wheaton (4.0 %, 10.8 %, 2.4 %)
Hobart & William Smith (4.0 %, 10.4 %, 2.0 %)
Kenyon (3.9 %, 11.7 %, 3.3 %)
Hamilton (3.8 %, 14.5 %, 5.3 %)</p>
<p>Washington and Lee (3.6 %, 9.5 %, 3.9 %)
Skidmore (3.5 %, 16.3 %, 2.8 %)
Union (3.4 %, 13.9 %, 2.2 %)
Middlebury (3.3 %, 19.6 %, 10.3 %)
Bucknell University (3.2 %, 13.5 %, 2.7 %)</p>
<p>Bates (2.8 %, 11.3 %, 5.3 %)
St. Lawrence University (2.6 %, 8.9 %, 5.4 %)
Muhlenberg (2.0 %, 8.3 %, 0.7 %)
Reed (1.9 %, 16.7 %, 5.3 %)
Colby (1.8 %, 13.3 %, 5.7 %)</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'll refrain from any other comments at this point except to say that even those colleges that have historically demonstrated a strong commitment to diversity -- Williams, Swarthmore -- have some room for improvement in creating a student body that looks like the face of America.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I can't imagine what these colleges could possibly do to bend over backwards any harder. Swarthmore has twice set the high water mark for any elite college or university enrolling 12% of the freshman class African Americans. They fly them to campus free for visits before and after admission letters. They have every program under the sun. They simply cannot enroll any more than they do and the reason, in large part, is because the pool of African American male high school graduates is so small.</p>
<p>Swarthmore, right now this fall, is 45% African American, Latino/a, Asian American, Native American, and International. Onkt 55% white US students. What exactly doesn't "look like America".</p>
<p>For the last two years, over 50% of the acceptance letters have gone to non-white or non-US applicants. The admissions office has quota of non-white majority public high schools they must visit. The admissions staff is balanced racially. What is it that you would have them do? Accept high school drop outs? Put quotas in place so that the college failure rates of unprepared students can go thru the roof again? That wasn't really a great plan back in the 1970s.</p>
<p>Ya'll need to back the truck up with some of the false assumptions being tossed around in this thread. </p>
<p>For the record, the three most diverse elite schools on the East Coast are MIT, Swarthmore, and Wellesley. Note that two of the three are liberal arts colleges. More diverse than Harvard (which is very diverse). More diverse than any other east coast universities.</p>
<p>It's really disheartening to know the overwhelming effort these schools make to achieve remarkable diversity (only 55% white with a sticker of $50,000 a year) only to see people dismiss those efforts. Good lord, diversity is Swarthmore's top priority in admissions, faculty hiring, adminstration hiring, and so forth. They terminated their football program because the admissions slots were needed for diversity recruitment.</p>
<p>But, I guess it's never enough.</p>
<p>HudsonValley: Which Wheaton College did you list? There are two or three of them.</p>
<p>Interesteddad: I don't think anyone dissed Swarthmore.</p>
<p>**Nonresident aliens (6.6%)
Black, non-Hispanic (8.5%)
American Indian or Alaskan Native (0.9%)
Asian or Pacific Islander (17.3%)
Hispanic (10.3%)</p>
<p>White or unknown (56.4%)**</p>
<p>This is Swarthmore's current enrollment. What part of this does not look as diverse as America? For the record, I think calling out Williams for "need to do more work" is equally infuriating. Similarly with Amherst. These colleges are killing themselves for racial diversity.</p>
<p>
[quote]
They fly them to campus free for visits before and after admission letters. They have every program under the sun. They simply cannot enroll any more than they do and the reason, in large part, is because the pool of African American male high school graduates is so small.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The problem is indeed getting minorities to apply and accept, in spite of heavy recruitment efforts. Minorities generally apply in higher proportions to pre-professional schools, where the economic benefits are generally higher than at LACs.</p>
<p>There won't be much sympathy here in blaming LACs for their low minority numbers.</p>
<p>interesteddad, I doubt the OP would be satisfied with anything less than a college perfectly representative of the US population. The only way to achieve that would be through quotas, leading to the intense competition for high-achieving Asian students and equally lower standards for UNDERrepresented minorities.</p>
<p>Am I bitter? Maybe, but I would gladly trade the advantage being Asian gives me at Midwestern LACs for holistic admissions based on merit (certainly not just stats, but merit, with socioeconomic allowances instead of racial).</p>
<p>OP: To recreate the face of America, a college would have to go directly against the American dream and DENY deserving opportunity to the "overrepresented"--a line that even current AA policies toy with but do not cross.</p>
<p>Again, no one dissed Swarthmore, Williams or Amherst. Now, maybe Boston College deserves to be dissed. One percent? </p>
<p>My only issue with the LACs and black enrollment is how some of them pad their "impressive" numbers with blacks from other countries, mostly African and Caribbean countries. At some of the schools we visited, it seemed like half the "African Americans" were really African. Is there a difference? Yes, although the difference might elude some non-African Americans. I think blacks from other countries should be counted as internationals not African Americans. Nevertheless, some schools roll them up to boost the AA numbers.</p>
<p>As I mentioned my younger D attended an inner city high school- that was larger than her sisters LAC.
Most of her friends, who went right to college, wanted a school that was bigger than their high school not smaller, including my younger D.</p>
<p>In addition, many of her friends had never attended a school where they were the majority race, and in looking at colleges- that was a desired criteria & quite a few applied to schools that were either HBCUs &/or were in cities that had higher populations of blacks than Seattle.</p>
<p>In defense of Reed stat- I will point out that Portland is the least black major city in America- not sure why, although can't think offhand of major employers, like Seattle has Adobe,Microsoft, & Boeing. </p>
<p>Reed also has required core curriculum for freshmen that is heavily weighted toward dead white guys ( if you assume that Greeks are white)- no football, no basketball, I don't even think they have a baseball team.
They do play rugby.</p>
<p>However- you may have heard of their president in connection with de-segregation.
He and his wife raised their sons in Boston during a period of gentrification & their experiences with school desegregation and racial equality were chronicled in New York Times journalist J. Anthony Lukas’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book Common Ground. </p>
<p>"My only issue with the LACs and black enrollment is how some of them pad their "impressive" numbers with blacks from other countries, mostly African and Caribbean countries."</p>
<p>Since U.S. blacks don't apply and can't be recruited in sufficient numbers, what is your preference? More U.S. non-blacks in place of the foreign blacks? Would the foreign blacks appreciate being counted as non-blacks to satisfy bean counters? BTW, "African-American" is not a Common Data Set category; it's "Black, non-Hispanic."</p>
<p>There's no problem recruiting and enrolling minorities. The growth rate in enrollment of Asian Americans and Latino/a students at top LACs has been nothing short of breathtaking.</p>
<p>While enrollment since 1976
</a></p>
<p>Asian American enrollment since 1976
</a></p>
<p>Latino/a enrollment since 1976
</a></p>
<p>African American enrollment since 1976
</a></p>
<p>As you can see, the lack of progress is only with one ethnic racial group and admissions officers will tell you that they are recruiting with one hand tied behind their back because the male high-school graduation rate is so low in this group.</p>
<p>Those charts are quite interesting, interesteddad. Particularly Pomona's spikes in 1996 (both Asian and Latin@), since the definition of a spike means that it went DOWN afterwards.</p>
<p>Hudson Valley said and I quote:</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'll refrain from any other comments at this point except to say that even those colleges that have historically demonstrated a strong commitment to diversity -- Williams, Swarthmore -- have some room for improvement in creating a student body that looks like the face of America.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Doesn't look like the face of America? What quota would be satisfactory? Again, more than 50% of the acceptance letters each year go to non-white applicants.</p>
<p>BTW, international has a very specific meaning -- students who are not US citizens or green-card permanent residents. You may think that black students of some ancestory should or should not count as internationals, but you would have to take that up with all of the standardized resporting groups such as IPEDS.</p>
<p>IMO, the Pomona spike probably indicates an error in the data. I took the numbers from the IPEDS database so the numbers are what they are, but it doesn't mean they are correct. I am highly suspicious of those spikes.</p>
<p>I think the charts show pretty clearly why I get a little prickly when it is suggested that these elite colleges and universities aren't "doing enough" to look like American racially.</p>
<p>Because of my son's interests, we mostly only shop for research universities in large metropolitan areas, so it's interesting to see the discussion of LACs here. </p>
<p>A participant on the main FAQ thread on the College Admissions Forum </p>
<p>on ethnically based recruitment and admission policies at various colleges directed my attention to this thread. Some of the more general comments about public policy here perhaps better fit that thread, which you are all welcome to visit.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Ya'll need to back the truck up with some of the false assumptions being tossed around in this thread. </p>
<p>For the record, the three most diverse elite schools on the East Coast are MIT, Swarthmore, and Wellesley.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It's hard to fault Interesteddad on his position on an issue he has researched and commented for several years --except for a small comment that the term diversity can be misleading since schools like UC Riverside or UC Irvine are considered ... highly diversified. For instance, removing the Asian American from the diversity numbers and limiting the diversity factor to URM might present a different image of Wellesley. </p>
<p>In general terms, there is a great danger in using simplistic approaches in looking at the minority numbers for LAC. For starters, despite fast growing numbers in applications, one needs to remember that the pool of applicants for LAC is relatively small and that the number of overlapping admissions tends to be high. As a result, the yield (an otherwise meaningless statistics outside the world of enrollment managers) ratios at LAC tends to be lower than a similarly selective schools. In other words, a school might ACCEPT planty of students who are forced to only attend ONE school and turn down many schools that accepted them. This is especially important for high scoring URM who can typically choose from a number of schools since URM tend to stay away from ED pools (unless using programs such as Questbridge.)</p>
<p>Starting to scratch the surface usually helps understand the slight irritation displayed by I-Dad.</p>
<p>To me, the racial diversification of elite colleges and universities has been one of the great American success stories over the last thirty years. I mean, just look at the white enrollment chart over that time frame and think about the "changing face" of a college at 90% white and 56% white.</p>
<p>It is just unfathomable to me that people could be complaining about "needing to do more". As it stands, I think the colleges and universities have probably erred on the side of investing too much money in diversity. We may well see a correction in that spending now that there is serious fiscal pressure on colleges.</p>
<p>The story nobody is talking about is the recent surge in Latino/a elite college enrollment. From all perspectives (admissions standards, graduation rates, etc.), this is a very positive story.</p>
<p>" Now, maybe Boston College deserves to be dissed. One percent? "</p>
<p>I'm baffled about that, too, for reasons that were mentioned earlier in this thread: It's in a large urban area and has a sports culture. It's not as if blacks are averse to going to a Catholic college. Georgetown doesn't seem to have problems attracting black students.</p>