<p>A lot of what I have read abt many LAC's describes the general population as "white, upper-middle class, and preppy." I go to a HS w/ lots of these kind of kids, which is fine, but I was hoping for soemthing a little different at college.</p>
<p>What LAC's are actually diverse (in reality not just in their viewbook)?</p>
<p>As far are racial/ethnic diversity, a few of the most diverse top LACs are:</p>
<p>Wellesley (55% US-white)
Swarthmore (63% US-white)
Amherst (64% US-white)
Mt. Holyoke (66% US-white)
Barnard (66% US-white)</p>
<p>There are a bunch that are around 70% non-US white, including Williams and Pomona.</p>
<p>Smith has a tremendous amount of socio-economic diversity.</p>
<p>There are several less selective LACs with high degrees of racial diversity including Occidental in California, Agnes Scott in Atlanta, etc.</p>
<p>Stam, Most LACs are intent on increasing their diversity percentages. Those that are not located in cities suffer the double hit of having mostly all-white surrounding areas which can also affect the ambience. </p>
<p>Many schools compensate for not being able to matriculate as many URMs as they would like by increasing their international enrollment. Although internationals can certainly be "white" they often are not. </p>
<p>Diversity can also be achieved in other ways than race -- ethnic, religious, economic, sexual, political. The top schools know achieving diversity is important and believe me they are trying! The pool of qualified URMs is still small and those that can, often choose big names over LACs, so the yield doesn't match the acceptance rate.</p>
<p>In spite of efforts, most LACs remain whiter and middleclass-er than their Big U counterparts. I think "Preppy" is somewhat outdated as an accurate description as even the most "elitist" of the LACs (like Amherst, Williams, Bowdoin, Hamilton) have entered the 21st Century.</p>
<p>After having grown up in Asia and attended an international school with kids of every possible ethnic and religious background, my son was quite concerned about being diversity-starved at Williams, but after being there for two years he feels that there's a good representation of kids from a wide range of backgrounds and outlooks.</p>
<p>"A lot of what I have read abt many LAC's describes the general population as "white, upper-middle class, and preppy."</p>
<p>Afraid to break it to you, but all the usual co-ed LAC suspects are predominantly white, upper-middle-class or upper class, and have high percentages of students from prep schools. My alma mater (Williams) is about 70% white; 73% of the white students receive no need-based aid (which means family incomes above $150k; of the remaining 27%, approximately 7 out of 10 have incomes in the top quintile (about $85k and up). </p>
<p>Of the high-powered LACs that are not women's colleges, Occidental is likely the most diverse, both racially and economically. The slightly lower SAT/ACT scores you see associated with them are wholly attributable to the impacts of family economic status on test scores. Some of the midwestern schools, notably Grinnell and Macalester, are not more racially diverse, but tend toward higher economic diversity (Macalester, like Mount Holyoke, has traditionally had a very high percentage of international students as well.)</p>
<p>You won't find ANY (or maybe just a handful) of white, upper-middle-class preppies at Berea. Tuition is free, too, if you can get in (it's very selective.) The college motto is "God has made of one blood all peoples of the earth," and it shows in the student body. Terrific academics, too.</p>
<p>Stambliar:</p>
<p>I think some of what is being posted here can be misinterpreted. If you read Mini's and Momrath's replies, you could come away with the notion that universities are pargons of diversity while LACs are not.</p>
<p>This is not the case. In fact, if you plot diversity stats for private universities and LACs, you'll see that both have the same kind of distribution. Some schools with a ton of diverity, many schools with pretty good diversity, and some with none. For example, here are the percentage of white-US students at several of the most diverse private universities and LACs on the east coast.</p>
<p>Swarthmore 63%
Amherst 64%</p>
<p>Harvard 60%
Yale 64%
Princeton 64%</p>
<p>And, an LAC/univeristy pair that overcomes the rural geophraphic issue to still achieve pretty solid diversity.</p>
<p>Williams 69%
Dartmouth 67%</p>
<p>Now, what Mini says is indeed true. At all schools with very high median SAT scores, you will find a lot of wealthy kids. That's self-evident, given the correlation between high test scores and wealth. But, it would be easy to interprest Mini's post as suggesting that this is somehow different at LACs than at universities. Nothing could be further from the truth. In both cases, you can find very "preppy, white" schools or schools with more diversity. </p>
<p>Obviously, as your selectivity goes down, the more likely you are to find fewer "rich" kids. I mean, the local community college probably has a great deal of socio-economic diversity.</p>
<p>The diversity sats are widely available in nearly every college guidebook or from the college's common data set.</p>
<p>I would recommend looking up both the racial/ethnic percentages and the percentage of students qualifying for finanical aid for each of the schools you consider. Taken together, both can be useful in understanding a college.</p>
<p>I only tried to answer the question about LACs 'cause that's all he asked. ;)</p>
<p>Occidental which I have regarded as one of the more diverse colleges has 54% caucasian-
Reed which struck me as fairly homogeneous surprised me with only 59% caucasian-however coming from my D high school with about 31% AA students- 4% seems pretty pitiful</p>
<p>Emerald:</p>
<p>Something is wrong with your numbers. Occidental is 61% white US-citizen, according to their 03/04 common data set. I think your number may be failing to account for the "unknown" category, which both USNews and the colleges consider to be "white".</p>
<p>The number appears way off for Reed. It is:</p>
<p>2% Af-Am
8% Asian-Am
5% Hispanic
1% Native Am.</p>
<p>Caucasian is listed at 62%, but that fails to account for the 20% refusing to self-identify on the application. </p>
<p>So, comparing to the percentages I gave for the schools above, using the same measure, Reed would be about 82% white.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I only tried to answer the question about LACs 'cause that's all he asked.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Right. And, your answer was accurate as far it goes. But, presumably, the question about LACs was really a comparative question, i.e. are LACs less diverse than similarly selective universities in the same region of the country?</p>
<p>I felt that your answer could easily be mis-interpreted in that way.</p>
<p>Student profile</p>
<pre><code>* 1,887 students from 46 states, the District of Columbia and 22 foreign countries
* 58 percent women, 42 percent men
* 7 percent African American
* 11 percent Asian American
* 54 percent Caucasian
* 3 percent international
* 15 percent Latino/a
* 1 percent Native American
* 9 percent declined to state
</code></pre>
<p><a href="http://www.oxy.edu/x841.xml%5B/url%5D">http://www.oxy.edu/x841.xml</a></p>
<p>I also noticed that while @ Reed 59% were white the largest minority was declined to state at 16%</p>
<p>I was also using the figures from enrolled freshman students for 2004-not the whole student population
<a href="http://web.reed.edu/ir/2004stuethnic.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.reed.edu/ir/2004stuethnic.html</a></p>
<p>Fair enough. But, also to be fair, there is the issue of critical mass. Two schools - one a prestigious u. the other a prestigious small LAC - may have exactly the same percentage of a particular ethnic/racial group, or low-income students. Yet, the larger one is likely to feel more diverse, because of the critical mass necessary to have,. say, a strong ethnic association and events, or, in the classroom, more than one or two low-income folks contributing to the conversation. I speak from experience. I went to Billsville when it was only 1,200 students, but by my senior year had statistically as much diversity as the University of Chicago. But when I taught undergrads at Chicago, the classrooms felt much, much more diverse. </p>
<p>So the point is that percentages only tell half the story. The impacts of having a strong majority culture (or the lack of vibrant minority ones) are likely to be felt more emphatically at smaller places than larger ones, and I say that as an advocate, for most students, of LACs. </p>
<p>And this is the question I think the OP wanted addressed.</p>
<p>Wesleyan comes to mind.</p>
<p>Today, UChicago has essentially the same diversity stats as the colleges and universities I listed above: 64% white-US citizen and 48% qualifying for financial need. I would guess that UChic may feel more diverse because of its urban location.</p>
<p>Occidental and Lewis and Clark have the reputation of being quite diverse but I have not checked the specifics numbers.</p>
<p>"Today, UChicago has essentially the same diversity stats as the colleges and universities I listed above: 64% white-US citizen and 48% qualifying for financial need. I would guess that UChic may feel more diverse because of its urban location."</p>
<p>It would feel more diverse than many LACs because of sheer size. And the lack of diversity at a LAC (or what look like small differences between them) would be magnified because of the small size.</p>
<p>Mini:</p>
<p>When it comes to large universities, the perception of diversity probably depends on which part of the elephant each blind man is feeling.</p>
<p>For example, Duke is statistically very diverse (66% white US citizen). Yet, if you were looking at the preppy/frat portion of the elephant, it would not feel very diverse at all. You would say that the university is "all white". Conversely, if you were looking at the Af-Am theme housing, it would not seem very diverse, either -- but in a completely different way. The increased size simply allows more thorough de facto segregation on campus -- which could be a plus or a minus depending on your point of view.</p>
<p>Another factor to consider in terms of diversity is not just the percentages but how well and how often different racial and economic groups mix with each other. If you want a widely diverse group of friends, this is an important issue. A school can be very diverse on paper and yet be very sterile in terms of actual interaction between different groups. What's the point of going to a diverse school if you're just going to end up socializing primarily with people who look just like you?</p>
<p>Just curious what percentage of the entire college-going population is not white? Maybe the "diversity" numbers of 60%-70% are a reflection of the entire population? Just curious.</p>
<p>I think it depends on the area- in some areas Asians have both a higher high school graduation rate and 4 yr college education rate than Caucasians.</p>
<p>According to the 2000 Census, the United States is currently about 75% white. However, I'm not sure that number would necessarily hold for college-age demographics.</p>