<p>I agree with your post, interesteddad about the importance of taking note of colleges that have the "unreported" option under their percentages. That's why in the LAC post, at least, schools where more than 10% of the student body didn't report their ethnicity are marked with an asterisk. </p>
<p>I personally don't feel one can just add in the unreported ethnicity students to the percentage of caucasion students which is why I used the astericks. As several people on this thread have brought up, other non-caucasian students(Asian, in particular, comes to mind as do those students who want to get into college regardless of race) surely don't report their ethnicities. Although many of the students who don't check which race they are are more likely than not white, there are also plenty of non-caucasians who, for one reason or another, also don't fill out that portion of the college application.</p>
<p>The issue is not really whether it is correct or incorrect, but how you achieve consistency. Since many of the colleges on the list are already adding "unreported" to "white", the only way to get a consistent comparison is to add it for all.</p>
<p>At least then, you are comparing apples to apples, even though the "white" number is probably off by a handful of students. Being off by a handful is preferable to being off by hundreds.</p>
<p>i don't think your numbers are correct. for example, on the yale website it says around 70 % are white or other (hispanics are a separate category)
harvard is 60% white (non hispanic)</p>
<p>So, in an effort to rectify the situation (you've convinced me interesteddad), here's a re-post of the list of LAC percentages of caucasian/white students which also include those students who didn't report their race. </p>
<ol>
<li>Williams College 64%</li>
<li>Amherst College 62%</li>
<li>Swarthmore College 53%</li>
<li>Wellesley College 53%</li>
<li>Middlebury College 66%</li>
<li>Carleton College 75%</li>
<li>Bowdoin College 73%</li>
<li>Pomona College 62%</li>
<li>Haverford College 68%</li>
<li>Davidson College 81%</li>
<li>Wesleyan University 68%</li>
<li>Vassar College 74%</li>
<li>Claremont McKenna College 65%</li>
<li>Grinnell College 73%</li>
<li>Harvey Mudd College 69%</li>
<li>Colgate University 77%</li>
<li>Hamilton College 77%</li>
<li>Washington & Lee University 84%</li>
<li>Smith College 64%</li>
<li>Colby College 75%</li>
<li>Bryn Mawr College 75%</li>
<li>Oberlin College 77%</li>
<li>Bates College 85%</li>
<li>Macalester College 70%</li>
<li>Mount Holyoke College 62%</li>
<li>Barnard College 66%</li>
<li>Colorado College 84%</li>
<li>Scripps College 76%</li>
<li>Bucknell University 84%</li>
<li>Trinity College 80%</li>
<li>Lafayette College 81%</li>
<li>Kenyon College 84%</li>
<li>College of the Holy Cross 82%</li>
<li>University of Richmond 80%</li>
<li>Sewanee University of the South 87%</li>
<li>Bard College 80%</li>
<li>Occidental College n/a</li>
<li>Whitman College 79%</li>
<li>Connecticut College 83%</li>
<li>Union College 84%</li>
<li>Dickinson College 81%</li>
<li>Furman University 88%</li>
<li>Franklin & Marshall College 76%</li>
<li>Centre College 91%</li>
<li>Sarah Lawrence College 84%</li>
<li>Rhodes College 85%</li>
<li>Gettysburg College 90%</li>
<li>Skidmore College 81%</li>
<li>DePauw University 81%</li>
<li>Denison University 87%</li>
</ol>
<p>And while I'm at it... here's the list of the percentages of caucasian/white plus not reported students at the top 50 universities according to USNWR as posted by hawkette...</p>
<ol>
<li>Princeton University 60%</li>
<li>Harvard College 59%</li>
<li>Yale University 62%</li>
<li>California Institute of Technology 39%</li>
<li>Stanford University 46%</li>
<li>Massachusetts Institute of Technology 43%</li>
<li>University of Pennsylvania 56%</li>
<li>Duke University 57%</li>
<li>University of Chicago 63%</li>
<li>Dartmouth College 64%</li>
<li>Columbia University 53%</li>
<li>Washington University in St. Louis 70%</li>
<li>Cornell University 63%</li>
<li>Northwestern University 64%</li>
<li>Brown University 60%</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins University 60%</li>
<li>Rice University 49%</li>
<li>Emory University 61%</li>
<li>Vanderbilt University 75%</li>
<li>University of Notre Dame 73%</li>
<li>University of California, Berkeley 36%</li>
<li>Carnegie Mellon University 51%</li>
<li>Georgetown University 72%</li>
<li>University of Michigan n/a</li>
<li>University of Virginia 71%</li>
<li>University of California, Los Angeles 36%</li>
<li>University of Southern California 49%</li>
<li>Tufts University 72%</li>
<li>University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 74%</li>
<li>Wake Forest University 83%</li>
<li>Brandeis University 74%</li>
<li>College of William & Mary 74%</li>
<li>Lehigh University 80%</li>
<li>Boston College 74%</li>
<li>New York University 64%</li>
<li>University of Rochester 76%</li>
<li>University of Wisconsin 82%</li>
<li>University of California, San Diego 37%</li>
<li>Georgia Institute of Technology 69%</li>
<li>Case Western Reserve University 69%</li>
<li>University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 66%</li>
<li>Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 78%</li>
<li>University of Washington 59%</li>
<li>University of California, Irvine 28%</li>
<li>Tulane University n/a</li>
<li>Yeshiva University 95%</li>
<li>University of California, Davis 39%</li>
<li>University of California, Santa Barbara 59%</li>
<li>University of Florida 63%</li>
<li>Penn State, University Park 87%</li>
<li>University of Texas, Austin 54%</li>
</ol>
<p>Where are those numbers from? Are they for the entire student body or just a freshman class?</p>
<p>The Swarthmore number is correct for last fall's freshman class (53%). However, the overall student body last fall was 58%. Amherst was 63% for the entire student body, according to its Common Data Set.</p>
<p>University of California, Irvine 28% - California
University of California, Berkeley 36% - California
University of California, Los Angeles 36% - California
University of California, San Diego 37% - California
University of California, Davis 39% - California
California Institute of Technology 39% - California
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 43% - Massachussettes
Stanford University 46% - California
University of Southern California 49% - California
Rice University 49% - Texas</p>
<p>I think you've been wrong. You seem to totally forget people of Indian/Pakistani and to less extent, Middle Eastern descent. Many of them don't check "Asians" as many people think of the term as Chinese/Koreans/Vietnamese...not South Asians and certainly not people from Middle Eastern. I'd think they are more likely the "others". There are a lot of them in top schools. At Northwestern's HPME, it'd been said 1/3 of them are Chinese, 1/3 of them are Koreans, and 1/3 are Indians (from India or born here).</p>
<p>
[quote]
You seem to totally forget people of Indian/Pakistani and to less extent, Middle Eastern descent.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's not been my point. I know that the unreported number is not precise. I've simply been suggesting that you have to apply that imprecision consistently across the board. Since many colleges lump "unknown" in with white when they prepare their data, then the only available avenue to consistency is to lump the two categories together for all schools. There is no option to separate out "unknown" because many schools do not report that number.</p>
<p>One of the flaws in the current reporting is that "Asian" covers way too much enthnic ground. But, it is what it is. We'd have to talk to the Census Bureau to change that.</p>
<p>I may not know your point but I know you wrote the following in the very beginning of this thread (post #3): </p>
<p>
[quote]
Significant percentages of white applicants now choose not to self designate. Without including these "unknowns", you get a very misleading view of the campus composition. Of course, the rate of "unknowns" varies quite a bit. The stronger the affirmative action, the less reason a white student would check an ethnicity box on an application.