<p>Back when I was a sophomore or so, one of the reasons I had an interest one of the LACs I applied to was that it had a relatively high Asian population for a LAC. Personally, being from an area very limited in Asians, I thought it would be pretty interesting that I could be in a place with more people of the same ethnicity of me. So I decided that having a 10% or so percentage of Asians would be good, and back in 2009, Asians made up about 12% of the school's population.</p>
<p>I had assumed that this number would be pretty constant over the years, so I didn't bother to check up on it until after I had finished applying to the school this year. However, to my surprise, the Asian percentage here had fallen to...7%. Which is still more than where I come from, but not really what I was hoping for.</p>
<p>Now, I'm not regretting my choice to apply there. Nor am I going to automatically turn down this place if I'm lucky enough to receive an acceptance in the mail. I guess I just wanted to find somewhere to express my finding. I doubt anybody has an explanation why, and I'm still sure that the college is a great place for Asians. But I'm still wondering, how could a college's demographics change that quickly? And as far as I can tell, the demographics of comparable schools have not changed.</p>
<p>Oh well. At least this might get me a leg's up in admissions.</p>
<p>7% Asian means that Asian students are still ORM in the context of the US population as a whole (which is about 5% Asian). Of course, if it is in a state like California or Hawaii, that may be different.</p>
<p>Presumably, this is a small school. If the freshman class has 200 students, the difference between 12% Asian and 7% Asian is 10 students (24 versus 14). Fluctuations of that magnitude are not completely surprising at such low numbers.</p>
<p>I havent seen that in schools my D is applying to.
The range of Asian studets seem to be in the 20 to 30% range. Are you at a public or private school?</p>
<p>What happened the intervening year, i.e., was it 12% in 2009, 12% in 2010, then 7% in 2011? Or has it been trending downward from 2009? A five point drop seems pretty significant considering it’s nearly half the original value; on the other hand, as ucbalumnus points out, if the freshman class is small, the numerical fluctuation doesn’t seem that striking. Yield is hard to predict at any school; at small ones, you can end up with years that are just a fluke.</p>
<p>The first thing that occurred to me was, Asians not reporting race (it’s optional on Common App) out of fear it can hurt more than it can help because of the “over represented” stigma. So double check your LAC’s stats–the last line will probably be “unknown” or “not reported.” Has it been increasing? There may be more Asians behind that number.</p>
<p>(I guess you know the “nonresident alien” line on Common Data Set is for reporting international students, so that will likely also include Asians, although not Asian Americans. Sometimes, they break out countries represented on profile pages.)</p>
<p>I assume you’ve followed the school’s forum here on CC, Googled media reports, etc. to comfortably conclude, “I’m still sure that the college is a great place for Asians.” If you’re admitted, I hope you can visit before deciding so you can see for yourself how you feel about the student body and how you’d fit in. If you are concerned, ask your admission counselor for an explanation and also seek out an independent opinion–perhaps there is an Asian students organization. Also, are there any current students who are alums from your HS? They are always great sources of all kinds of information…</p>
<p>Well, from a brief glance, the amount of Asians dropped from about 200 to about 120 from 2007 to 2010, while the amount of people with unknown ethnicity didn’t really change. So I think that’s a significant drop.</p>
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<p>It’s a good school in general, and I doubt the drop had to do with there being a terrible racial climate. So I figured it’s probably still a good school for any student who can get in.</p>
<p>After further reading of the CDSs, I noticed a really strange trend. It wasn’t that the Asian population dropped off after a couple of years. The gap actually appeared between 2009 and 2010! In 2009, there were about 200 Asians, but then in 2010 (the most recent figures), the figure had dropped to 130! There were similar drops for African-Americans and Native Americans. But there was a rise for Hispanics.</p>
<p>However, there were some key changes that year to how CDS got reported. First of all, Asian and Pacific Islander were split into two groups, although that definitely didn’t account for the change in numbers. Also, the non-Hispanic groups were explicitly referenced to be non-Hispanic, meaning that all Hispanic students would be put into one category. I don’t think that would account for the entirety of the drop, because I would be surprised to find that there were so many Filipino (presumably the ones who identified as Hispanic Asians, although all probably don’t) students at Bowdoin. </p>
<p>However, there was one more big change, and that of the introduction multi-racial category. I guess looking at these numbers is an interesting look at how people view themselves racially. But it’s late and I need to get to bed.</p>
<p>In HI, about 30% of the population is Caucasian. Japanese is the next largest group with about 20% of the population. Much of the state has folks with mixed ethnicities. Also, as long as folks have at least ONE DROP of ethnic Hawaiian blood, they are classified as “native Hawaiian” for census purposes, so the numbers are somewhat off (I’ve been informed this is how “native American” is also classified).</p>
<p>Is attending a small college important to you? Or is having the opportunity to meet other Asian students more important?</p>
<p>I ask because I think you might want to consider total numbers of Asians as well as percentage. If you go to an LAC with 1000 students, of whom 10% are Asian, that’s 100 Asians. But if you go to a university with 20,000 students, of whom 5% are Asian, that’s 1,000 Asians. And you can probably meet quite a lot of them by joining Asian-oriented ECs.</p>
<p>I think both are important to me. That’s why I liked the school, which specifically had both. However, I don’t think I would want to go to a school with 20,000 though.</p>
<p>You could go to a great school with 40,000 students. At some you could take Urdu or other Indian subcontinent languages not offered at smaller schools. Size does have certain advantages.</p>
<p>The reason for the post is your interest in being with students from your ethnic group. You could therefore also have an interest in your cultural heritage and desire courses in related topics. Also to show that 20,000 is medium, not large by some standards.</p>
<p>Check and see how many were international students. Need-blind aid to internationals took a hit at many top-ranked colleges after their endowments dropped in 2009.</p>
<p>Who said the OP is resisting the conclusion in that thread? He or she hasn’t posted anything inconsistent here since reading and acknowledging the analysis.</p>
<p>yes and you are talking about Maine…in my opinion if you were interested in a college with a high percentage of Asians you picked a strange state to go shopping in. Smaller colleges are still highly regional…</p>
<p>I was looking at the percentages as they were given to me. I don’t see how a 12% Asian college in Maine would be less Asian than a 12% Asian college in California or Hawaii.</p>