<p>By any definition you wish (racial, economical, locational, ideological, etc.) what do YOU think is the most diverse place to go to college in the US?</p>
<p>Here is the racial/ethnic breakdown of degree-seeking undergraduates at 6 schools where my kid applied:</p>
<p>School…Int…Black…NA…Asian…Hisp…White…Mix/Unk…Isl<br>
Wesleyan (CT)…6.2%…6.8%…0.5%…10.7%…8.3%…61.2%…6.4%…0
Haverford…3.3%…8.4%…0.6%…10.4%…8.8%…66.7%…1.8%…0<br>
Middlebury…9.8%…2.9%…0.5%…8.5%…5.7%…67.1%…5.5%…0<br>
Macalester…11.2%…3.7%…1.1%…8.9%…4.5%…70.7%…0.0%…0<br>
St.Mary’s College MD…1.6%…7.9%…0.6%…3.7%…4.5%…76.7%…4.9%…0<br>
Colorado College…2.5%…2.0%…0.8%…5.1%…6.7%…79.1%…3.8%…0</p>
<p>I’ve ranked them in ascending order according to the percentage of white students. By this measure, Wesleyan lives up to it’s nickname of “diversity university”, and Colorado College lives up to its reputation for being not too diverse. Notice, however, that the 4th ranked school in this list (Macalester) has a higher percentage of Internationals or Native Americans than all the others. </p>
<p>For comparison, here is the breakdown for a large public university:</p>
<p>School…Int…Black…NA…Asian…Hisp…White…Mix/Unk…Isl<br>
Berkeley…3.2%…3.4%…0.5%…41.7%…11.5%…31.5%…8.2%…0</p>
<p>By percentage of white students, Berkeley is much more “diverse” than all 6 of the above LACs. However, it has a smaller percentage of Internationals, Blacks, and Native Americans than many of the LACs, and the white majority is replaced by an Asian plurality.</p>
<p>One way to expose ethnic/racial diversity would be to seek the school whose predominant racial/ethnic group (the one occupying the largest percentage) is the smallest number. For Berkeley, Asians are predominant at 41.7%, which is much smaller than the percentage of Wesleyan’s predominant group (whites at 61.2%). So, what schools can top Berkeley by this measure?</p>
<p>any of the CUNY schools
UAB
Temple
Maryland-Baltimore County
University of Miami
SUNY-Stony Brook
DePaul
George Mason
Manhattanville
Mount Holyoke
Wellesley
SUNY-Buffalo
Stanford
Randolph
St. John’s University
Wesleyan College
Randolph College</p>
<p>Diversity is more than just numbers, it is a schools location and commitment:
[Diversity</a> and Community | University of Miami](<a href=“http://www6.miami.edu/UMH/CDA/UMH_Main/0,1770,65989-1;27207-3,00.html]Diversity”>http://www6.miami.edu/UMH/CDA/UMH_Main/0,1770,65989-1;27207-3,00.html)</p>
<p>Pierre, how did you compile your list?
On what basis do you conclude that these schools are among the most diverse?</p>
<p>I rather randomly selected several schools (Wellesley, Mt. Holyoke and Stanford) from your list and profiled them according to the method I described above. Here is Stanford’s profile:</p>
<p>School…Int…Black…NA …Asian…Hisp…White…Mix/Unk…Isl
stanford…7.0%…10.0%…2.7%…23.0%…12.2%…38.2%…6.9%…0.0%</p>
<p>According to the metric I proposed, it appears to be the most diverse of the 9 schools I’ve examined so far. The ratio of the predominant group (white at 38.2%) is lower there than the ratio of the predominant group at other schools I’ve examined.</p>
<p>Does “Wesleyan College” refer to the women’s college by that name in Macon, Georgia?</p>
<p>Do we really care what color our classmates are? Not sure it affects whether they’re nice or whether they’re dicks.</p>
<p>yeah Wesleyan College refers to the women’s college in Georgia</p>
<p>tk21769, diversity can mean different things to different people, diversity can mean races (black, white), social status (rich, poor), sexuality (homosexuality/gays, straight), religion (Christianity, judaism, Islam, etc…)</p>
<p>the schools that I listed are just common schools that I hear that are praised for their high level of diversity by their students.</p>
<p>I know Occidental College in LA focuses a great deal on making their student body as diverse as possible, whether it be by race or any other aspect.</p>
<p>Yes, of course, diversity can mean different things to different people.
But if we just compile a list of supposedly diverse schools based on hearsay, how do we know what we are really comparing or whether the hearsay has any basis in fact? </p>
<p>I had had the impression (based on things I’d heard, read or observed) that St. Mary’s College of Maryland has a diverse student body. However, this impression does not seem to stand up to scrutiny based on the demographic data for race and ethnicity. Moreover, 80% of its students are from a single state. Perhaps students are diverse by family income, but I do not know how to access comparable data to analyze that.</p>
<p>Racially:</p>
<p>I went to visit my friend at Rutgers-Newark. I think I saw 2 White people while I was there.</p>
<p>School…Int…Black…NA …Asian…Hisp…White…Mix/Unk…Isl<br>
Rutgers Newark…2%…14%…N/A%…27%…23%…28%…6%…0</p>
<p>Diverse location ( three that I can think of):
University of California- Los Angeles
Arizona State University
University of Pennslyvania</p>
<p>kish364, I cannot locate a Common Data Set for Occidental College. Do you know where to find complete demographic data to help us examine your claim?</p>
<p>This remark is posted by an observer on a different forum:
[quote]
Oxy used to be as diverse as it claimed to be, but thats been disappearing. More rich, white students are being admitted, and the level of diversity is dropping because of that.<a href=“I’d%20cite%20my%20source,%20but%20CC%20seems%20to%20have%20a%20filter%20that%20automatically%20replaces%20the%20name%20of%20the%20forum%20with%20asterixes”>/quote</a></p>
<p>“Diversity” is a way for universities to act like they subscribe to the idea that we’re living in a race-neutral country where every race is on equal grounds, not to use as a criterion for college selection. People that make threads like this are sipping the P.C. Kool Aid and look like complete tools for buying into this rubbish.</p>
<p>What about socioeconomic diversity? This is difficult to measure, but what universities have a high number of Pell grant recipients?</p>
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<p>In my viewpoint, when one out of every 10 kids you see is like you, that’s not diversity. Based on that, African-Americans at only 3.4 percent at Berkeley is far from impressive and the only true minorities on campus from a strictly race perspective. International students is a different category where nothing is learned simply from just that one number.</p>
<p>Temple: 61% white 15% black 11% asian 4% hispanic ~6% international</p>
<p>socioeconomic, sexual, political as well. Working on geographic.</p>
<p>Clayton State University
Trust me. Go there.</p>
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<p>gthopeful, you are not trying to say that the objective of racial and ethnic diversity in fact plays no role at all as a criterion in college admissions at selective schools, right? </p>
<p>I believe you are trying to say that racial and ethnic diversity is “a factor that applicants should not use as a criterion for college selection.” Correct?</p>
<p>If so, why would it trouble you that some applicants consider this in choosing a school? If a kid from an working class family wanted to find a good school with a balance of wealthy, low, and middle income students, would you consider him misguided?</p>
<p>I can’t speak for everyone else, but I think the main problem here is simply whether we can measure and identify schools as more or less diverse. What you do with that information is up to you.</p>
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<p>Correct.</p>
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<p>Because it’s an irrelevant factor. Why should having 500 instead of 100 of a minority enhance the perceived quality of college education? I mean education is the point of college, right?</p>
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<p>Has anyone shown statistics for socioeconomic diversity? No, I’ve seen a bunch of posts about which schools have what percentage of blacks, hispanics and native americans. Let’s not argue something that’s not present in this thread.</p>
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<p>…I think you have a lot to learn. There are plenty of ways to learn OUTSIDE the classroom. That’s why colleges are learning environments, not merely a set of classrooms. Even though every person is different, meeting and learning from all sorts of people - including minorities - is a part of life that should be celebrated and a part of learning that should be accentuated. This is especially true in our globalized world. Going to a school with, say, ONLY white or black or Asian students isn’t helping promote learning, tolerance, understanding, and familiarity with experiences from around the world and around the country. You will meet as many minorities with similar experiences and a similar world view as you as you will meet over-represented populations with different experiences and a different world view as you. Does this mean we shouldn’t promote trying to learn from different people? All sorts of people - including ethnic and racial minorities, but also international students and students from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds?</p>