Diversity & small colleges

Parents Forum
1

<p>I'm in a bit of a quandry, searching for candidate schools for my junior S. I don't expect any great answers here, I'm just rambling....</p>

<p>He's aiming small, and hasn't pinned down too much more yet. But he goes to high school with a very diverse student body, and although he has probably not realized this yet, most of the small colleges he may end up considering have a much smaller minority population than he has experienced (& enjoyed). And diversity I know will be an important consideration in his college search.</p>

<p>So, being the numbers guy, here's a sample of what I've found with Afric/Asian/Hispanic/Native American numbers at LACs (and I was somewhat surprised & dismayed):</p>

<p>Amherst 29%
Pomona 28%
Williams 27%
Haverford 26%
Bowdoin 23%
Wesleyan 23%
Vassar 19%
...then, the numbers start dropping more.....
Trinity 16%
Colgate 15%
Colorado College 14%
Hamilton 14%
Conn College 12%
Davidson 12%
Skidmore 12%
Bucknell 11%
Denison 11%
Dickinson 11%
Reed 11%
Richmond 11%
Colby 10%
Bates 9%
Kenyon 8%
Rhodes 8%
W&L 8%</p>

<p>Perhaps I'm just a city boy in a democratic state, but I just can't imagine sending my son to a school with a minority student population like most of the LACs above, with the exception of the most elite. Its not the precise numbers I'm worried about....they are merely a simple yardstick....... its the culture of diversity and the commitment to a learning environment w/ a variety of perspectives and backgrounds that are important. I was particularly dismayed that with all the good things I have read & heard about Davidson, it has such a small minority community. Perhaps it is on the rise, as it seems from the sampling above that the more selective schools, perhaps with larger endowments, can make (and are making) the investments needed to attract minority students and to really make a change in their culture.</p>

<p>OK, so I welcome your thoughts on the matter. Assuming my S will need to consider a few other schools beside the most selective, I guess its better to aim for colleges that are really trying to diversify, perhaps with less than real-world demographics, rather than to be at a school than is not deep-down committed to change. Anyone have any insights regarding diversification commitments and progress at any of the LACs mentioned? [My s's list won't encompass all the LACs above, I just compiled the list out of curiosity.] Thanks.....PC</p>

2

<p>Your numbers exclude international students</p>

3

<p>Look at Oxy and Mac. Pretty dang diverse. Also here are CB's numbers for white/non-hispanic at some selected schools :</p>

<p>Scripps 50%
Colgate 70%
Hamilton 61%
Amherst 50%</p>

<p>Are they right? I have no idea but they are different than your cited numbers. They could be entirely fiction. (I was looking at this very thing myself among schools my D is considering . Now I just have to get them to consider her. LOL.)</p>

4

<p>I pulled the numbers from USNEWs, which gets them from the college Common Data Sets.</p>

<p>Here's the breakdown for Amherst:
African-American 9%
Asian-American 13%
Hispanic 7%
Native American 0%
White 65%
International 6% </p>

<p>So, I just totalled the first 4 categories to get an Amherst minority total of 29% (9+13+7+0), & no, I didn't include international students.</p>

<p>Curmudgeon-- I can't figure out that Amherst # from CB....If I figure it out, I'll report.</p>

5

<p>Well, Collegeboard has a funky way of doing things for sure
Amherst:
10% Asian/Pacific Islander
10% Black/Non-Hispanic
6% Hispanic
45% White/Non-Hispanic
7% Non-Resident Alien
23% Race/ethnicity unreported </p>

<p>Scripps:
14% Asian/Pacific Islander
3% Black/Non-Hispanic
7% Hispanic
50% White/Non-Hispanic
1% Non-Resident Alien
24% Race/ethnicity unreported</p>

<p>Does the difference suggest whites form by far the largest % of the group that refuses to disclose ethnicity? If so , what an interesting sociological tid-bit.</p>

6

<p>PC, Having attended international schools in Asia for most of his educational life (plus a year at a Manhattan public) finding diversity was an objective for my son when he started researching colleges. Since he was drawn toward small, non-urban schools with an arts-focus requirement, the figures, as you note, kept coming up on the weak side. </p>

<p>I think it’s important to remember that true diversity is not just racial: it can be ethnic, religious, sexual, political, economic, artistic, or geographic and many of these factors don’t show up as admissions percentages. For small colleges covering all these bases – as well as filling the sports teams and the orchestra -- can result in just a handful from each column in a class of 500. </p>

<p>Further, the schools in remote locations have difficulty matriculating the diverse students whom they have admitted. Whatever their group may be (e.g., African American, Gay, Muslim, poor) they often prefer to go to a school with an already established critical mass. The most academically outstanding URMs are in short supply and are often accepted at the very elite schools, another blow to the mid-range LACs. Thus, even if the college’s commitment is sincere the outcome can be disappointing. (Same can be said for the faculty.) </p>

<p>As MikeyD points out many LACs compensate by admitting non-white international students. Some include these in their racial figures, some don’t. </p>

<p>So after three and half years, what’s the verdict? My son has met and befriended a widely diverse group, again not just racial, but different in many ways. It’s nowhere near the range of his high school circle (which was astonishingly diverse), but still a respectable assortment of all the types that I mentioned above. </p>

<p>When we got together with kids from his high school over the holidays, many of whom attend schools on your list, this issue was a common topic. Most felt that they could find diversity even on the whitest of campuses. They made friends through propinquity (who’s assigned to live next door), through clubs, activities and sports teams, through classes in their majors and in all of these cases the unifying factor wasn’t race (or sexual proclivity or politics or income) but some common interest that brought them together in an informal mix-it-up result.</p>

7

<p>Papa Chicken, we had the same concerns when we started the college search. My daughter attends a charter school which is economically and racially diverse, as well as quite a mix of urban, suburban, and rural kids. Since we live in an area that is "noted" for its segregation patterns, this high school is a rare and priceless treasure. My daughter's final list of schools do NOT reflect the same level of diversity as her HS, but what she looked for when doing campus visits was the appearance of self-segregation. If she saw a lot of self-segregation during meals, for example, it was a concern for her. The final schools on her list made the cut, in part, because while they may not have the highest diversity numbers, she saw (and experienced) enough evidence that self-segration was not prevalent. It may be that your son won't find the perfect percentages, but when he makes campus visits, it can be helpful to look carefully at how these numbers translate in real situations.</p>

8

<p>Part of the problem is that a lot of minorities don't apply to these schools. As to the difference in numbers, you have to look at what diversity means to a college. It doesn't just mean ethnicity, but geographic and economic diversity. There are kids from remote areas, etc. Amherst has a little over 50% from public schools this year (per the Prez) the largest number ever. So just because the kid isn't ethnically diverse, the student can be diverse by bringing a different US culture to the mix, as well as being exposed to kids who are a mix economically. Realize that many of the schools you mentioned used to be white, rich kids' schools, and have become diverse in many ways, not just ethnicity. D is at Amherst and has met kids from all over the US and the world, ethnically diverse and not. And even though they may be white, they are diverse by virtue of where they came from, and the fact that they lived a different lifestyle before they came. Everyone adds something to the mix.</p>

9

<p>Papa Chicken:</p>

<p>I'm not sure why you are singling out LACs. The larger elite universities have essentially the same diversity.</p>

<p>Not counting the women's colleges (Wellesley is very diverse), the most diverse of the elite northeast LACs is Swarthmore (32% Af-Am, Asian-Am, Hispanic, N. Am plus 6% international). Harvard is the most diverse of the universities (34% Af-Am, Asian-Am, Hispanic, N. Am plus 9% international).</p>

<p>The only super selective schools that have more diversity than that are MIT (huge Asian-Am enrollment) and Stanford (huge Asian-Am enrollment and look at the regional population base).</p>

<p>It takes a huge financial commitment for super-selective private colleges to recruit and enroll minority students.</p>

10

<p>Papa Chicken -- you might want to open up your college search to larger, urban schools and public universities. My son attended a small east coast LAC but only lasted 2 years there - lack of diversity was one of the factors influencing his decision to leave. He was right that an LAC was a good fit for him educationally - but he outgrew the environment. My daughter is a high school senior who thought she knew what she wanted in a college until she visited -- she was put off by the overly "preppy" atmosphere of the colleges she had once thought were her top choices, and now is aiming for urban and big. All it took was an overnight stay with a friend in a dorm at NYU to convince her that a big university environment was not nearly as intimidating as she had thought.</p>

<p>I don't think you should reject any school out of hand for lack of diversity - that is only one of a number of important criteria to consider. The statistics don't really tell the whole story, in any case -- you really need to visit the campus to get a sense of the prevalent atmosphere on campus. For example, you may find that the minorities tend to self-segregate at a given campus with a larger percentage of minorities, while there may be more interaction among kids from different backgrounds at a college where the numbers are lower. You just can't know until you visit.</p>

<p>Also ... let your son decide. It really isn't a matter of numbers - its a sense of fit or belonging that goes beyond race or culture. I don't think more rich kids of color would have made the difference for my son at his LAC ... I think it was more the sense of being isolated on a small suburban campus with so many kids from overprivileged backgrounds that he found stifling. </p>

<p>At the same time, I was chatting with my son (now age 22) this past weekend, and he feels he made the right college choice at the time and is glad that he went there. It just didn't end up being the place where he wanted to spend 4 continous years -- but there were other factors involved as well.</p>

11

<p>thank you all for your thoughtful comments.</p>

<p>I agree with the general sentiment that one can't sum this up with a simple set of numbers, and that diversity is more than racial diversity. I guess my biggest parental worry is that my S, being in a diverse community all of his educational life, won't fully recognize how good he's had it thus far and what his college experience might be without such diversity. Calmom, I could imagine my S going thru the same evolution as your S.</p>

<p>Yes, the advise to let S ferret this out while doing college visits is a good one, and I'm sure I will prompt him to be on the lookout for self-segregation and other positive and negative signs of diversity. He's only visited one large state school during the school term, which while very diverse, was overwhelming size-wise to him. On the other extreme, we visited 2 LACs on the list above last summer, one with a low minority percentage & one with a 20%+ share. As these were summer, day visits without many students, there was no way to judge how diversity was working at each particular institution.....so overnights during school sessions are definitely a way to better get a handle on this issue.</p>

<p>& one of the reasons he's thinking small right now is because he is considering playing his sport in college, but does not want a D1 commitment, leaving smaller D3 schools as candidates. Who knows, if this issue seems important to him, he may decide to bag the sports and look at more moderately sized schools which may provide a more robust candidate list.</p>

12

<p>Davidson actually ranks pretty much the same as AWS in terms of African American percentages (maybe even a point or two higher than some of the elites). Its Asian numbers are low largely because of location and possibly name recognition I think, and I suspect it is trying very hard to bring them up.</p>

13

<p>For those of us whose kids attend extremely diverse schools, the college selection process is more complicated IMHO. Finding a college or university environment similar to the HS one is nearly impossible and speaking to recently returning college students, the college population can be a real shock to them. Larger urban and state unis will have a larger critical mass of of diverse students, but for the student who wants the benefits of a small LAC, the choices are narrower. Even the most divers of the LACs will seem blindingly undiverse to our kids. In fact,there are few "real world" environments as diverse as the high schools some of our kids attend and they are richly rewarded for having the experience, but save for the UN, they will not easily find a similar life envrionment. DD college search is over and she is completeing her senior year- she went the way of a small LAC and diversity was a primary factor for her.</p>

14

<p>Your son doesn't know how lucky he is. I grew up in the 60s Upstate NY, and my family was the first black family to live in our village of 6,000 people. My brother and I integrated the elementary school, and I integrated the middle and high school. When I went to Harvard, I had never been around so many black people in my life. I was thrilled! It wasn't until I was far into adulthood that I realized how nondiverse Harvard was, particularly back then.</p>

<p>Since then, I was the first black person to integrate the wire service office where I worked, and also was the only black person in my psychology internship class. </p>

<p>Frankly, most of those figures for the LACs' diversity look good to me. Think about it: This country is only 12% black, and has a much smaller proportion of Asians, Native Americans and possibly Hispanics. Regardless of whether one lives in a red or blue state, unless one lives in a very large urban area, one isn't going to have the kind of diversity that apparently you and your son are used to. Most high schools also are not that diverse. </p>

<p>The only states that have minorities as the majority are, I think, Calif. and Hawaii.</p>

<p>If you want to send your S to a place where minorities are the majority try either the Cali public universities, the historically black colleges or places like Florida International U. He also can look at colleges in large cities, though it is tough to find LACs in large cities. Many large cities do have, however, large minority populations. </p>

<p>Otherwise, he may as well get used to being in a minority as that's also likely to prepare him for the experiences he has after college.</p>

15

<p>Smal size may work a bit in diversity's favor, or help correct some of the problems with low numbers. </p>

<p>I attended a small and not-terribly-diverse college, but what I experienced was an environment where you really got to know people. When you're in a class with 8 people or 12 people, you get to know those other 8 to 12 people. </p>

<p>When I was in college I tended to avoid being pushed out of my comfort zone socially, so I wouldn't have sought out people very different from me (of course, neglecting the fact that as a small-town girl from the Midwest I was a bit of an oddity myself). Frankly, I probably wouldn't have gone into the dining hall and sat with the international students or the nontraditional students or the lesbians or you name it. Didn't matter--in a small residential campus with small classes, I got to know them anyway because they lived next to me or sat next to me.</p>

<p>It sounds like your son would seek people out anyway, so his situation is different than mine was. But I think the atmosphere of a small campus does make a difference and helps.</p>

16

<p>if you are looking for names of schools to look at - clark university in worcester, ma prides itself on its diversity - don't have the stats, but i know when we visited there was visibly a much more diverse student body than at most of the other schools we looked at of its size.</p>

<p>vassar also claims to be big on diversity, though again i don't have stats. but again, it passed the "sitting in the cafetereia looking at the mix of students test." ( of course this test mostly just registers a difference with those schools where the "sitting in the cafeteria test" makes you feel like the student body was shaped with a cookie cutter and does not claim any statisical accuracy. :) )</p>

17

<p>if you factor out the asians, and most of the asians I know are from upper-middle class families, are more anglo(preppy) than most lower middle class anglos and are notorious 'prestige hounds", then there is not much difference in 'diversity' at the top LACs. Prestige hounds will not consider most LACS other than the top few in the Northeast(and Pomona in heavily asian California), hence their absence in most other LACs. "Diversity" is mostly a shell game to make admission officers feel better about themselves.</p>

18

<p>
[quote]
Frankly, most of those figures for the LACs' diversity look good to me.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I'm scratching my head a little bit about that, too. Now, admittedly, I'm viewing it from a white perspective, but my most striking impression of my daughter's LAC, every time I've been on campus, has been the racial and ethnic diversity of the place. This year's overall enrollment is only 61% U.S. citizen and white. This year's freshman class is only 57% US citizen and white. It's not just the numbers, but the student groups, faculty, ECs, and even music and movie preferences are decidedly "multicultural" as well. And, on top of that many of the white students at the school have had "diversity" experiences, whether it is living overseas or whatever.</p>

<p>I do agree with Papa Chicken that the "diversity" does tend to fall off rapidly in the tier of schools just below the most heavily endowed private colleges. But, even that is not universally true as places like Occidental and Agnes Scott have tremendous diversity among their students. Papa Chicken's conclusions may be somewhat flawed in that his list tends to focus almost exclusively on a relative handful of schools that cater the most heavily to an affluent "preppie" customer base.</p>

<p>I do agree with Papa Chicken's instincts, however. In this day and age, looking forward to the world our kids will encounter over the next half century, diversity would be high on my list of desirable attributes in a college environment.</p>

19

<p>My younger daughter attends an inner city high school with a great deal of diversity,several of her older friends attended colleges in the New Orleans area. :( pretty diverse schools however
Her sister attends a small LAC in a not so diverse city- at least it doesnt seem so to me, but the school is very welcoming, but for example they have few AA profs.
But I agree that there are many ways of looking at a diverse environment. My oldest attended private schools K-12 where * she was * the diversity. Her college doesn't feel segregated, it just feels like a school that doesn't attract as wide a group of students as you would see at a university.But the LACs have pretty strong personalities, at least hers does, and the base of studying dead white guys freshman year, unfortunately doesn't attract a high proportion of minority students, although since they give aid to international students, what the student body * looks like* is improving</p>

<p>The schools that I think of with diversity- are Occidental- and U Chicago- not sure about Chicagos mix- but it certainly is in a diverse community</p>

20

<p>My advice: look outside the northeast if you want LACs with diversity. You're more likely to find small LACs with higher levels of diversity in the south, the midwest, and certain parts of the west coast than you will in the Northeast. I also think that folks that want TRUE diversity should probably focus more on public institutions --- as a general rule, most (but not all) are often much more diverse, both racially and economically, then private universities and colleges.</p>