<p>Hey everyone! </p>
<p>I am just starting my college search and I'm trying to find a school that does well academically as well as has a high diversity rate (Not just international students) or a campus that is very open minded in general. I'm open to hearing about any colleges, location does not matter. I know that this question is pretty broad, but any tips you can give me are greatly appreciated. </p>
<p>Thanks! </p>
<p>Hard to do without knowing stats or economic situation. And not sure what you mean by “diversity” and “open minded”. Can you elaborate more? I know very conservative students who want an “open minded” campus, and very liberal ones who mean something completely different when they say that. </p>
<p>But given what I think you mean, if you are female, Mount Holyoke, Bryn Mawr, or Smith all come to mind. Macalester and Pitzer are a couple more.</p>
<p>You’ll find that at alot of colleges across the nation, obviously one that attracts students from all over the country has more diversity than a local state school, but it really depends on your criteria. What else are you looking for in a college? What is your home state? Possible major? I think diversity at most colleges is relatively easy to find, with the exception of a few I can think of of the top of my head, I think answering those other questions are perhaps more important to start your college search. In addition, many websites such as College Board and even this one has search criteria that allow you to pick a college based on what you want int one, so that’s always cool!</p>
<p>Check out colleges.niche.com for specific rankings. Here are the top ranked schools for being open minded in order:</p>
<p>U of Houston- Downtown
San Francisco State University
IUPUI
Loyola Univetsity New Orleans
NYU
MIT
Florida Int’l U
Columbia College Chicago
Brown
VCU
Southern Oregon U
Stanford
U of Miami
UC- Merced</p>
<p>Don’t forget Oberlin, Vassar, Wesleyan, Reed, Lewis and Clark, Colby, Hampshire (MA). They are all LAC’s known to be open-minded. And if you are female, Smith, Bryn Mawr, and Barnard fit the bill too. </p>
<p>Until you tell us what you mean by diverse (racially: in terms of Blacks? Asians? Whites? Latino/as? internationals?; LGBT? class? region? politics?), it will be hard to help you. How diverse? There are plenty of schools in the northeast who think because, for instance, they’re only 80% White that they’re diverse. Is that your idea of diversity? If you mean no more than 70% White, what if the other 30% are Asians and internationals? What do you want in a diverse institution? Help us out, please.</p>
<p>UCLA is only 28% white, but that may not be the diversity you’re looking for.</p>
<p>UCLA has relatively high SES diversity compared to other highly selective schools:
<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/economic-diversity-among-top-ranked-schools”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/economic-diversity-among-top-ranked-schools</a></p>
<p>Can you give us a little more guidance? There’s no point in discussing MIT or Stanford if you lack the academic credentials to even consider them. There are some small liberal arts colleges that are known for a commitment to tolerance and diversity, but whose costs of attendance keep their student bodies overwhelmingly white and affluent (e.g. Reed, Hampshire, Pitzer, Bard, et al). Most large public universities have more diverse student populations, but the students are likelier to self-segregate socially. Urban colleges do not necessarily have more diverse student bodies, but the surrounding communities will be much more diverse than small college towns. </p>
<p>That’s a very narrow understanding of ‘diversity’. It’s not just about poor POC that contribute to the diversity of a school. It’s the people, whether white or POC, who grew up in Argentina or Australia; in a small village in Iowa with labor conflicts; a big, dying city with gang violence disrupting commute to high school; in a home with wealthy parents who gamble etc etc. Diversity is not just about being a person of color but also a person with a unique line of thought and a background that can add to the community. Even if you’re really wealthy, you can have much to contribute to a school. Perhaps you travelled the world. Others could now do that vicariously.</p>
<p>Also let’s not single out Reed, Hampshire as “less diverse” institutions. Williams has a 61% white student body, for instance. All these small LACs, except for perhaps, Agnes Scott or Spelman, have lots of white kids, and sometimes no amount of financial aid can help that because there are much larger structural forces at play. Big state schools are probably very “diverse” in terms of POC, though.</p>
<p>Williams has a much more generous endowment than some of the colleges I cited, and so it can be very generous with financial aid. The small colleges have to parcel out their aid very carefully, so that their student bodies overwhelmingly comprise students whose families can pay most or all of their $60k+ costs.</p>
<p>I apologize-- I mentioned that this was a pretty broad question, but I can address some of the things brought up earlier. </p>
<p>I live a female living in Minnesota looking in the Northeast/Northwest/Midwest Area for schools. And in terms of definition of diversity, I am honestly just looking for a campus with students that are open to different walks of life. I am really looking for a campus that has diversity of opinion, not necessarily just POC. I have been looking at places like Louis & Clark and Reed and such but the extremely low POC rate worried me a little bit. I’ve previously visited LAC’s elsewhere in Minnesota where they have not only been overwhelmingly white but there also seems to be little diversity of opinion. Of course, I can’t properly judge based on one visit, but the general vibe I’ve been getting from campuses are very one-toned. </p>
<p>So far, i’m planning on looking at Macalester, Lewis and Clark, and American University among others. Again, I have just stared the search to this list is subject to change over the next few weeks. </p>
<p>All in all, I think that I am looking for a campus that has lots of different types of people that are open to change. Again, I’m not sure if I’m still being super vague about this, just let me know if I need to clarify again. </p>
<p>Thanks for the help! </p>
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<p>Note that the regions you are looking in have relatively few non-white people living in them. <a href=“Population Distribution by Race/Ethnicity | KFF”>http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/distribution-by-raceethnicity/</a> indicates that most of the states in those regions are over 70% white (exceptions: IL, NY, NJ; the US as a whole is 63% white). Since almost all colleges (including private ones) have more visibility in their regions, they tend to have overrepresentation of students from their regions. (“white” in this context means non-Hispanic)</p>
<p>As far as diversity of opinion goes, you may have better luck with larger schools.</p>
<p>Ucbalumnus-- Do you have any larger schools in mind? </p>
<p>Again, thanks for the help everyone! </p>
<p>Obvious larger schools (for potential diversity of opinion) include the public universities in MN and WI that you can get low cost for (though they may not have the racial or ethnic diversity that you are looking for).</p>
<p>Greater racial and ethnic diversity is more likely to be found as you go south within the US (such as the US states which touch either Mexico or the Gulf of Mexico).</p>
<p>Did I miss it? What is your career interest or goal? What about majors and minors? Want city or country or 'burbs? What might be your EFC? Your stats for admissions? If you share more about these, you would likely get a fabulous list of good options. </p>
<p>Thought: Kalamazoo! (From last year: <a href=“Visiting – Admission | Kalamazoo College”>Visiting – Admission | Kalamazoo College)</p>
<p>Yes, you’re still being quite vague, but it’s a difficult task knowing what one means by terms like diversity and what those terms can mean to others. It’s a task you might strive to complete in a lifetime. A common lesson in college classes is for the professor to stop and ask the student what he or she means by a term like diversity or beautiful. The lesson involves the student learning that she’s not really sure what the word means and therefore doesn’t really know what she thought she knew about the term and topic. She realizes, more bluntly, that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Knowing what one’s “talking about” is an absolutely necessary step toward clear and precise thinking and communication. The professor won’t be picking on you; she or he will be trying to help you and your classmates–and maybe themselves–learn.</p>
<p>I support your desire to find an ideally diverse college, but it doesn’t exist. In the real world, we must compromise and take pieces of our ideals where we find them and try to increase the quantity of our “ideal” where we live. Yes, most people under the age of 25 are socially and fiscally liberal or progressive, and so are their colleges. In fact, most faculty, less so in the sciences and business, are fiscally and socially progressive. But there is great diversity even on these topics within any student body or faculty. Some student bodies and/or faculty are more conservative socially and fiscally, but only a few colleges could be considered conservative. There are a few more schools that are more conservative than average, but that isn’t saying much if you’re looking for a school where diversity is to include a 50-50 split. But you won’t find your ideal of a diverse institution. </p>
<p>So change the imperfect world you live in. If you’re happy at your college because of its regional and religious diversity, try to find ways to increase, for instance, the faculty’s racial diversity. When you find that a professor is particularly intolerant of ideas that are too X, talk to them about allowing students with X ideas to speak up in class without fear of hurting their grade in the class. College can be a place to challenge all kinds of ideas. Help your college to be that way more often in more ways. You won’t find the world the way you want it to be. You’ll have to try to change it–or maybe change your thinking about the way you want it to be.</p>
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<p>Not sure why science or business faculty or students would necessarily be more socially conservative than faculty in other areas. For example, biology faculty might not agree much with a common socially conservative viewpoint of non-evolutionary origins of life. CS does not seem to attract many socially conservative people, given the [lack</a> of support by employees in computer companies for a prominent socially conservative cause](<a href=“How Rare Are Anti-Gay-Marriage Donations in Silicon Valley? | FiveThirtyEight”>How Rare Are Anti-Gay-Marriage Donations in Silicon Valley? | FiveThirtyEight).</p>
<p>Business and economics faculty being more fiscally conservative would not be too much of a surprise.</p>
<p>ucb, polls repeatedly show that science faculty are more conservative than their liberal colleagues in the humanities and fine arts. That doesn’t mean that science faculty are conservative, given the ideas some of my colleagues aver :)) Lab rats may not have time to read Marx or the patience for Derrida. Ever pushed yourself thru Kapital? Last time you finished Of Grammatology without screaming? or even engaged in an argument about whether Marx is a humanist or Derrida is not just the antichrist of the Enlightenment?</p>