<p>I was considering applying to Bowdoin for next year. But I was told by several sources, including my counselor that I should rethink Bowdoin, not for it’s academics which are top notch, but because as a minority student, I will feel very isolated and out of place at Bowdoin.</p>
<p>Could anyone give me a straight story on whether it is more difficult being a minority student at Bowdoin than at other top flight schools?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>My son will be in the class of 2011 and while we're white, I'd suggest you contact a woman who gave us a tour of Bowdoin and she is still a student. Her name is Welsley and she works in the admission's office. She's African American and she was a wonderful tour guide. I believe she'd be honest and receptive to your question.</p>
<p>bowdoin is not as diverse as other schools, but i think it currently enrolls upwards of 25% students of color. from what i can tell the issues regarding bowdoin and diversity are how a small school in maine accommodates and eases the transition for minority students and not necessarily that there are so few minority students. however, something to keep in mind is that the school itself is small, so 25% of a small student body will not always seem like a "critical mass." reports are that bowdoin is fairly diverse now, but with that come issues of mixing people from vastly different backgrounds, ethnicities, religions, and sexualities. it can sometimes be controversial and difficult. which is, i suppose, the intent of having a diverse campus.</p>
<p>I was just there for a weekend, and while it isn't a very diverse school, everybody was welcoming (I am a minority). My host and his roommates were all white and they showed me a good time and were very welcoming, as were many of the people I encountered walking around.</p>
<p>I didn't get the feeling that the students there were unwelcoming to minority students, but it may be that I just lucked out with my host(s).</p>
<p>It's really what you make of it. I'm a minority, but Bowdoin isn't a race-clique school. It only is if you make it seem like it is and actively pursue friends who are your own race. By doing that, Bowdoin (or any school for that matter) will just seem race-cliquey. I can confidently tell you that I have never ever felt out of place because of my race.</p>
<p>OOh cool my tour guide was Wellesley too!
i think she said it's even spelled the same way.</p>
<p>I personally think that being able to contribute meaningfully to the diversity of a school is always a plus rather than applying to schools with noticeably diverse student populations already. Bowdoin isn't quite there yet but they are making a concerted effort to do so. I personally felt like the kind of friendliness I encountered at Bowdoin was genuine and not of a fake - let me be cordial with this person of color attitude that I've encountered on other campuses trying to diversify. My host was not white, not of my own race but I could see people of different races interacting all the time throughout many forums.</p>
<p>I go here and I'm NOT a minority, so it would be unfair for me to make any judgements on how people feel. However, I do know that Bowdoin isn't a very diverse place, but I think most people are really wishing that would change. I've been struck by just how many wealthy new england prep school kids go here and that is definitely something you should know about Bowdoin if you do decide to come here. It's easy to feel excluded from that group if you're not part of it; I'm not and I know I've gotten frustrated with the girls that wear $300 shoes to class when the ground is covered in salt and ickiness, but I think that you can easily avoid that kind of thing depending on what groups you get involved in. There are a bunch of opportunities here to start things, get involved in things, and bring up different viewpoints but I think that a lot of people get frustrated that they aren't part of the "norm" and don't work at change. I've been reading on this board about a couple of students who have encountered some pretty disgusting racism lately and I would say that though that is not the norm, if you hang out with a certain group of people I wouldn't expect to be accepted regardless of social status, wealth, skin color, weight, etc. I'm assuming the issue of white wealth is a problem at other schools that attract the prep schoolers but I don't know for sure. If you do end up considering Bowdoin, though, it would probably be wise to prepare to work a little bit harder at some things if you are different for any reason. I don't mean to sound pessimistic because I do like Bowdoin, but even I was surprised at the amount of wealth and the homogeneity at this school and I'm a white girl that went to private school. I guess it really will depend on where you come from and what you're expecting. I don't think there is any out-right hostility or even much race-clique-y-ness but I would be aware that Brunswick is no big city and the stats don't lie</p>
<p>All the New England elite LACs have large numbers of students from wealthy and preppy backgrounds. If anything, i's probably more extreme at some of the other NESCACs that cater more to NYC wealth than does Bowdoin - like Williams, Amherst, Middlebury and Trinity. It goes with the territory when more than 50% of the student population is paying the full freight at $45K or more a year. Your parents have got to be fairly wealthy to be able to foot that kind of a bill . .</p>
<p>And, BTW, the disparity among the students is likely to become a huge problem in the future as these elite schools continue to push tuition and fees up by 4-6% every year so that only the fabulously wealthy can fill out the 50% plus of the spots in the student body that are allocated to nonscholarship students. .</p>
<p>this doesn't really answer your question but this is an interesting story about my interviewer (she was african-american). when i asked her about her experience at bowdoing, class of 95 or something so it was a while ago, she told me that she had been followed on more than one occasion by people with cameras who had never seen a colored person before...i think she said it was people in the town though.
obviously the diversity has come along since then but i still found it to be an interesting story</p>
<p>I'm guessing that the admissions person was yanking your chain. Brunswick is a military town and there have been minorities around town since the 1950s.</p>
<p>Maine, as a whole, has a ~3% non-caucasian population, as of 2001... but Bowdoin shows a much higher number than the Maine average... I believe</p>
<p>Bowdoin is considerably more diverse than Bates and Colby.
I believe more than 20% of my class (2010) is made up of minority students.</p>
<p>haha, lately the Bowdoin board has been going to crap-- why does everyone always think everyone else is attacking them?</p>
<p>30% of Colby students are international/minority-American students with 33 countries represented.</p>
<p>Bates also does fairly well for itself, as far as "minority student" diversity goes.</p>
<p>Taken right from the Colby website:
"10 percent [pf students]are international. Minority students make up 13 percent of the student population."
18 percent of the class of 2010 are minority students.
For Bates, only slightly more than 10% of the class of 2010 are minority students.
For Bowdoin, 24% of the class of 2010 are minority students. We win.</p>
<p>also taken off the website.</p>
<p>"12 percent of students are minority Americans"
"18 percent of students are international," and from my experience at colby, most international students are "minorities" because of their ethnic origins (non-Anglo/non-European).</p>
<p>Colby has three times as many African-American faculty members</p>
<p>Bowdoin has a higher yield of black students
<a href="http://orient.bowdoin.edu/orient/article.php?date=2005-09-30§ion=1&id=1%5B/url%5D">http://orient.bowdoin.edu/orient/article.php?date=2005-09-30§ion=1&id=1</a></p>
<p>Bates has many minority students that enjoy their experience:
<a href="http://www.bates.edu/student-perspectives.xml%5B/url%5D">http://www.bates.edu/student-perspectives.xml</a></p>
<p>Another site for info on bowdoin:</p>
<p>Anyways, what I was trying to say is that this thread isn't about "we win."</p>
<p>You can "win" at having the highest number of minority students-- the way schools provide statistics can be done several ways, making comparing them confusing, dangerous, and difficult to say which school is "considerably more diverse," if that's even the case at all. Just chill out and stop being so defensive and conceited. A few of the Bowdoin students on this thread make all Bowdoin students seem immature and pompous, when, in my experience, that's not the case at all. I'm just sick of the arrogant, jerky students representing Bowdoin on CC giving Bowdoin students a bad rep.</p>
<p>"I'm just sick of the arrogant, jerky students representing Bowdoin on CC giving Bowdoin students a bad rep."</p>
<p>i agree with the sentiment, but i think you, too, might need to "chill out" a bit. the most defensive person on this thread, at least, has been you.</p>
<p>Tspartan, the best way to figure out how you'd feel here is to visit - NOT during the Bowdoin Experience or Invitational or other minority-focused weekends, just on your own on some other random weekend. and make sure you don't just take a tour or walk around the campus during the day - go to a few classes, hang out in the dorms, head to the dining hall, maybe check out some of the nighttime entertainment... just, if you can afford it, avoid coming during one of Admissions' minority recruitment weekends (I say "if you can afford it" because I'm fairly certain that Bowdoin covers visiting students' expenses for those weekends, so if you need that in order to visit, then go ahead and come during one of those weekends - just know that Bowdoin's not always so diverse, OR so event-filled) - they paint a very skewed picture of Bowdoin, and I know of several people who were fooled by it, and realized when they got here "for real" that the school is less diverse than they thought.</p>
<p>true, true.</p>
<p>It's not excusable, but reading some of the most recent posts on the Bowdoin forum has really built up some annoyance and resentment in me.</p>
<p>I will chill out =).</p>
<p>And, I agree: The admissions diversity weekends, etc. tend to skew the reality of college life.</p>
<p>There is to be a segment in NBC news tonight (April 27) featuring Wil Smith, the director of Bowdoin's multicultural stident programs. This program may provide some insight into the diversity at Bowdoin question. Here's a little more info on the program and Wil Smith:</p>
<p>If you are sick of "arrogant" and "jerky" students. How do you define the student body, open-minded and accepting. There is so many fake liberals. They appear to be open-minded, but they are really are the nicer version of their arrogant counterparts. Let's work with Bowdoin to make it a better place, while the same place screws people over. Get this. I am not mad for speaking the truth. At least I speak a perception on my own terms, and i do not get wrapped in false idealism. I really don't care if you like what I say.</p>