<p>59 students are Asian-American students, so we should include some more students of international students from Asia. At least 2 percent of total students will be international students from Asia since there are 8 percent of international students. Therefore, we can say that more than 13 percent students of class of 2010 might be Asians.</p>
<p>Its simple why there aren't that many asians</p>
<p>1) They aren't applying in considerable numbers to rural schools
2) They prefer universities because the notion of LACs is a foreign concept</p>
<p>Doubt that is the main explanation. Not with 7, 8, or even 9 applications by an Asian-American for every one accepted. At W., lack of varsity athletic potential, lack of legacy, or developmental status, and lack of Pell Grant status eliminates way more than half the potential admissions slots. (with apologies to all Asian-American applicants who fit one or more of these four categories.) But the admissions process isn't directed to screen out Asian-American applicants - it just tends to work out that way. Or you could look at it another way, and say that Asian-Americans get one out of every three slots who are not athletes, legacies, developmental admits, or Pell Grant recipients. </p>
<p>What, by the way, is an "Asian-American"? Highland Hmong? Mien? fifth generation Japanese-American? Mongolian? Guamian? Polynesian? Gujarati? Afghani? Kamchatkian?</p>
<p>Any explanation has to be broad enough to address other LACs besides Williams. The current collegeboard.com numbers for the entering classes at highly-rated (US News top 20) coed LACs in the northeast are as follows:</p>
<p>17% Swarthmore
12% Bowdoin
12% Haverford
12% Wesleyan
10% Amherst
10% Middlebury
10% Williams
8 % Vassar
8 % Hamilton
7 % Colgate
6 % Colby</p>
<p>Clearly Swarthmore stands out. One has to wonder if Swarthmore's engineering program -- which is unique among the listed schools -- makes a difference.</p>
<p>At Columbia University, there are separate numbers for Columbia College (primarily LAC-type degrees) and for the Fu School of Engineering and Applied Science (primarily engineering degrees). Columbia College has 14% Asians; SEAS has 35%.</p>
<p>
[Quote]
Not with 7, 8, or even 9 applications by an Asian-American for every one accepted.
[/quote]
How do you know how many Asian-Americans applied? Thats the missing piece of this puzzle. </p>
<p>I still contend that theyre not applying in the first place and those that do apply, qualify academically, fit the personality profile and get an acceptance letter ultimately choose other schools that are perceived as more Asian friendly. Therefore in answer to the OP's query, I think being Asian IS an advantage in admissions.</p>
<p>Mini:</p>
<p>I think you've hit the nail on the head in looking at the profile of Williams students. Lindsey Taylor's excellent Economics senior thesis from May 2005 on Low Income Enrollment at Williams provides some key data on 1633 enrolled students in the first year classes in Fall 96, Fall 97, and Fall 98.</p>
<p>Some key data points that could impact Asian American enrollment:</p>
<p>65% played varsity sports in high school. 13.4% of men played varsity football in high school</p>
<p>44.5% attended private or private parochial high schools</p>
<p>25.7% had music, theater, dance, art, or writing "tags"</p>
<p>8.8% had community service "tags"</p>
<p>Asian-Americans are Asians who have US citizenship (those who have permanent residency or attend American high school might possibly be included in this category in admission process). In addition, Asian applicants who aplly for Williams from their countries might be "Asian-international" students. Many international students aplly for Williams College because it has a need bind admission policy. As a result, Williams' acceptance rate for international students might be significantly low.</p>
<p>"Any explanation has to be broad enough to address other LACs besides Williams. The current collegeboard.com numbers for the entering classes at highly-rated (US News top 20) coed LACs in the northeast are as follows:</p>
<p>17% Swarthmore
12% Bowdoin
12% Haverford
12% Wesleyan
10% Amherst
10% Middlebury
10% Williams</p>
<p>Nope. The entire difference can be accounted for by the different percentage of varsity athletes at Swarthmore. (It actually works out close to exact.) Every single school on the list other than Swarthmore has one thing in common - they all have football teams. Doesn't matter whether they are urban or rural, high in Pell Grants or low. </p>
<p>In other words, it IS a very broad explanation, even if the data suggest it is the only one necessary. (I have no data on percentages of legacies at each of these schools, but I'd be willing to bet that it is significantly higher at Williams than at Swarthmore, and higher than Colby, Colgate, Hamilton and Vassar.)</p>
<p>Actually, Mini, your theory has holes in it. Haverford has not had a footbal team since the early 1970s so it is identical to Swarthmore in that respect and therefore should have a similarly high percentage of Asian students under your theory. In reality, it does not but rather has the same percentage of Asian students as Bowdoin and Wesleyan (12%), both of which have football teams.</p>
<p>Granted you are correct about the football team. But look again at the percentage of varsity athletes at Haverford, and you immediately know why there are more Asian students percentagewise at Haverford than at Williams. And why isn't Haverford's Asian-American percentage as high as Swarthmore's? That's simple, too. Both without football teams, the student body at Haverford is one-third less than that at Swarthmore, and yet has to fill virtually the same number of varsity sport slots. Lo and behold, Haverford has one-third fewer Asian-Americans than Swarthmore. (Student bodies at Bowdoin and Wesleyan are, as I remember, double or even more than double the size of Haverford, hence correcting for the impact of having to fill the varsity football slots.)</p>
<p>Don't look for complicated explanations when simpler ones will easily suffice.</p>
<p>Bowdoin does not have any thing like twice as any students as Haverford. Its student body numbers about 1660 (about 44% more than Haverford's 1155 students). But Bowdoin has roughly the same number of teams as Williams, including both hockey and football teams (both of which take up a goodly number of admission slots), and a smaller student body than Williams. I would agree, however, that Williams does emphasize sports more than Bowdoin and probably allocates more slots to athletes than Bowdoin. And I have also read that Williams trends high on the number of legacy slots (ranging from something like 11% to 15% per year). The emphasis on sports and legacies at Williams may cut into the number of available slots for Asians. But I do have to ask -- why is it assumed that Asians are not athletes??</p>
<p>
[quote]
But I do have to ask -- why is it assumed that Asians are not athletes??
[/quote]
</p>
<p>From Chart 10 of the Williams College Diversity initiates study based on data from academic year 2003-04:</p>
<p>70% of the student body was "white"
86% of the varsity athletes were "white"</p>
<p>8.6% of the student body was "Asian American"
3.2% of the varsity athletes were "Asian American"</p>
<p>Asian Americans, African Americans, Latinos, Internationals, and low-income student were all significantly underrepresented on the varsity sports team. White students were the only group represented on sports teams at the same or higher percentage as their fraction of the entire student body.</p>
<p>Chart 23, with data from an enrolled student survey of about half the student body in Spring 2003. Percentage of each group participating in a varsity sport:</p>
<p>White: 49%
Asian American 33%
Latino 36%
African American 33%</p>
<p>Thanks for the Williams data. That's pretty dispositive. I wonder if the same pattern of athletes being disportionately white holds true throughout the NESCAC schools.</p>
<p>Yes. I'm sure the same trends hold true, not only in NESCAC schools, but at all elite private colleges and universities. The athletes are disproportionately white, wealthier, and more likely to come from private or private parochial high schools.</p>
<p>Here's what Amherst's Admissions Dean, Tom Parker told Business Week:</p>
<p>
[quote]
How do the athletes stack up academically?
On average, they rank about a 3.5 [combined SATs of 1350 to 1400]. By national standards, that's still pretty high. But we go down to 5's [SATs of 1250 to 1300] to recruit some football and hockey players. </p>
<p>Doesn't that compromise your academic standards?
We have to do that to be competitive. If we were to say we would no longer take any more 5s for football, the team would turn into a travesty. And with ice hockey, we would be talking about not having a team at all. </p>
<p>Most of your legacy admits come from pretty wealthy homes. What about the athletes?
Our athletic admits are not representative of the student body. They track towards the high end socio-economically. And that's because the kid (we recruit to play squash, for instance) was on the squash court at age 7, and playing in tournaments at age 12. And that's what you see in [wealthy towns].
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The unusually high percentage of varsity athletes at Williams is, almost certainly, related to the unusually high percentage of Williams students from private and private parochial high schools (44.5%).</p>
<p>Something like a dozen varsity men's ice hockey players were honored at the 2006 scholar-athlete dinner at Williams, out of 202 total honorees. This is only open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors.</p>
<p>Two years ago, Williams had two Rhodes Scholars--both of them varsity athletes--a wrestler and a soccer player. The wrestler was of Japanese ancestry.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The unusually high percentage of varsity athletes at Williams is, almost certainly, related to the unusually high percentage of Williams students from private and private parochial high schools
[/quote]
I don't understand the supposed correlation...private school sports generally play in private leagues because they can't compete at the same level as public schools. Squash and tennis being exceptions.</p>
<p>Driver:</p>
<p>The northeast private preps and parochial preps have been major recruiting grounds for elite college athletic programs for decades. Many of them have 13th year programs specially designed to prep athletes for elite college recruitment. Look at the team rosters at these colleges for names like Deerfield, Dunbarton, etc. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that the highest levels of public school sports (especially football) are not available to schools like Williams because of low SATs. The average SATs of major college football programs are often in the 800 to 900 range. The private preps and parochials specialize in delivering athletes who can score 1200 on the SATs. Of course, Williams would get clobbered by LSU in football, but they only compete against other schools requiring a 1200 SAT. Also, most of the sports at these colleges are sports that are not widely played at regular public highs.</p>
<p>The high percentage of recruited athletes at Williams would partially explain why Williams' percentage of private school students remains so high.</p>
<p>A second part of the explanation is that New England/New York are the regions of the country where private high schools are the most popular.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Something like a dozen varsity men's ice hockey players were honored at the 2006 scholar-athlete dinner at Williams, out of 202 total honorees. This is only open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Amazing that, out of the 70+ members of the Williams football team only four managed to make the 3.2 GPA cutoff for the banquet. Note that 3.2 GPA is below the average GPA at Williams.</p>
<p>It's especially noteworthy considering the lengthy section of the Athletics Report detailing that members of "certain men's teams" (a euphemism for football and ice hockey in the report) concentrated course selection towards certain departments and professors.</p>
<p>There is absolutely nothing wrong with Williams choosing to have a very high proportion of scholar-athletes. My refernce is meant to be explanatory, not a judgment. (Frankly, I think it is just fine that there is a school that is so particularly devoted to them.)</p>
<p>"Bowdoin does not have any thing like twice as any students as Haverford. Its student body numbers about 1660 (about 44% more than Haverford's 1155 students)"</p>
<p>If you account on the one hand for Bowdoin's football, and on the other hand for Haverford's filling the rest of its sports teams with a much smaller student body, you have an easy explanation as to why the percentage of Asian-Americans is so similar. </p>
<p>"Two years ago, Williams had two Rhodes Scholars--both of them varsity athletes--a wrestler and a soccer player."</p>
<p>Up until about 20 years ago, Rhodes Schoarships were specifically chosen as representative of "scholar-athletes" ("phyical vigour" it was called back then - and I should know, because I was awarded Williams' Carroll Wilson Fellowship to Oxford, "chosen after the manner of Rhodes Scholarships"). While the Rhodes folks have loosened this up somewhat, a major factor that separates out successful from unsuccessful Rhodes applicants is their participation in varsity sports. Hey, Bill Bradley with his 485 verbal SAT and Princeton admission, was a Rhodes Scholar (and a pretty smart fellah, I'd say.)</p>
<p>
[quote]
There is absolutely nothing wrong with Williams choosing to have a very high proportion of scholar-athletes. My refernce is meant to be explanatory, not a judgment. (Frankly, I think it is just fine that there is a school that is so particularly devoted to them.)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Amen. It's no more right or wrong than Harvey Mudd choosing to have a bunch of science geeks. Or Oberlin choosing to have a bunch of musicians for their conservatory. Or, W&L choosing a bunch of fratnerity and sorority types.</p>
<p>If anything, being known as THE small college for really smart jocks is paying off handsomely for Williams.</p>
<p>
[quote]
driver said: Something like a dozen varsity men's ice hockey players were honored at the 2006 scholar-athlete dinner at Williams, out of 202 total honorees. This is only open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
ID said: Amazing that, out of the 70+ members of the Williams football team only four managed to make the 3.2 GPA cutoff for the banquet. Note that 3.2 GPA is below the average GPA at Williams.
[/quote]
That's what I love about ID--that sunny optimism. The glass is always half-full. Always looking for the silver lining.</p>
<p>So what is the "average" cumulative GPA at Williams, ID? It takes a 3.5 to make the Dean's List. A 3.3 cumulative GPA makes you eligible for election to Phi Beta Kappa. </p>
<p>Maintaining a 3.2 cumulative GPA at a school like Williams while practicing every day and making multiple weekly trips all over New England to compete is no small feat. Ever try it?</p>