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<p>I only meant “prejudice” in the sense that many Northeasterners are biased against the Midwest and all things Midwestern, based on false assumptions. You automatically assumed a Midwestern LAC would be less diverse than a Northeastern one because . . . well, because it’s Midwestern, and everyone in the Northeast “knows” that no one lives in the Midwest except a bunch of conservative white Protestant farmers, right? But this turns out to be completely false, as the statistics I cited show.</p>
<p>And this is not meant to be a criticism of Bucknell in particular. Many Northeastern LACs are overwhelmingly white and draw from a narrow geographical base, partly because there are lots of affluent white people in the Northeast who want to attend top Northeastern LACs, and in part because public universities in the Northeast tend to be somewhat weaker. The top Midwestern LACs need to draw from a national base because the public universities in their home region tend to be stronger and represent pretty tough competition.</p>