"Race" in College Admission FAQ & Discussion 11

Applying to College
961

<p>You list one student that was rejected, with scores only. How about ECs? How about Northwestern’s and Wellesley’s admissions criteria? Do they put more weight on test scores and class rank that W&L?</p>

<p>You said:
514 Asian Americans applied with 50 accepted. Acceptance rate is 9.7%
566 African Americans applied with 36 accepted. Acceptance rate is 6.4%
532 Hispanics applied with 40 accepted. Acceptance rate is 7.5%
2717 Whites applied with 937 accepted. Acceptance rate is 34.5% </p>

<p>so it appears they are accepting whites at a higher rate than any of the other categories. Why say it is Asian-Americans being discriminated against, when clearly they accept fewer African-Americans and Hispanics than “whites” (quotes because either you really mean “non-Hispanic whites” or whites including Hispanics, because Hispanic is not a race).</p>

<p>More on W&L:
<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/washington-and-lee-counts-incomplete-applications-amid-debate-over-college-data/2013/09/16/17fa0a88-1714-11e3-be6e-dc6ae8a5b3a8_story.html”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/washington-and-lee-counts-incomplete-applications-amid-debate-over-college-data/2013/09/16/17fa0a88-1714-11e3-be6e-dc6ae8a5b3a8_story.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Also, if you look at their Common Data set, they admit fewer women than men:
Men: 596 out of 2800 = 21.3%
Women: 567 out of 3172 = 17.9%</p>

<p>W&L also has a HUGE waitlist, over 2000 when they only admit around 1150. I wonder if that is true of many schools.</p>

<p>Do they ask if you are liberal or conservative? Are there “red flags” for students being liberal or conservative? Note that Common Data mentions that race can be considered in admissions - is the implication that some races have to lose out if others have benefits?</p>

<p>I would also be interested in factors such as:

  • how many admitted students went to VA high schools
  • how many admitted students went to private school (= alumni money later)
  • what exactly W&L means by “character and personal qualities” as an important factor in admittance
  • the demographics of students admitted early decision</p>

<p>Oh, and they give the email for the Common Data contact: <a href=“mailto:mmabry@wlu.edu”>mmabry@wlu.edu</a> so why not contact her about apparent discrepancies…</p>

962

<p>I would suspect that W&L may also have a substantial pool of legacy applicants, and they may get preference as well. This would certainly have the impact of disadvantaging minority applicants, but it doesn’t show racial bias per se. There may be other factors as well, including athletic recruiting and others.</p>

<p>It is possible that W&L is biased against minority applicants. But it seems to me that those numbers are really too low–they don’t look good, and I have to think W&L would like to have more minority students. They only managed to enroll 9 African-American students in the current freshman class. That’s pretty disastrous in terms of PR. What can W&L do to improve both numbers of applicants and matriculating students? Well, they recently took the Confederate flags out of the chapel, which may help a bit. But the bigger issue is the overall character of the school.</p>

<p>In other words, I think you’re approaching the issues at W&L from the wrong direction. That’s why I say it’s sort of a special case.</p>

963

<p>@rhandco Yes, she also had good ECs etc. Not sure how to evaluate weight given by other schools since determining what percentage weight is given “very important” vs. “important” is subjective.</p>

<p>The low acceptance rate is universal for URM vs. White. I gave W&L a pass on Black and Hispanics since those two ethnic groups generally have much lower SAT/ACT scores as a whole than Whites and would isolate the claim of insufficient test scores for admission. The Asian group generally has the highest test scores or at least on par with White scores so W&L can’t say the Asian applicant didn’t meet its high level for test scores. As you can see from the data, Asian acceptance rates are similar to the other URM acceptance rate and only about a third the acceptance rate of Whites.</p>

<p>As to your observation about men vs. women acceptance rates, that is the result of more URM women generally applying than URM men to W&L. However if you broke down the data from 2012 White men and women the following is observed:</p>

<p>In 2012:
1,315 White men applied, 453 were accepted, 191 enrolled, acceptance rate 34.4%
1,402 White women applied, 484 were accepted, 198 enrolled, acceptance rate 34.5%</p>

<p>You are correct W&L has a huge waitlist that is much larger than any other top LAC and it also takes about 20% of its incoming class from the waitlist, about 90 students are selected. So if W&L cared about diversifying its student body, it could easily take more URM students from the waitlist, but clearly it does not since the number of URM students is under 60 each year.</p>

<p>If you look at the CDS for the past 10 years, W&L Admissions shifts the number of Hispanics, Blacks and Asians accepted each year so that the total URM enrollment is less than 60 each year. The White enrollment has held pretty constant. So in a year when there are a relatively high number of Asian enrolling, it inevitably means that there will be either a low Black or Hispanic enrollment and visa versa. If you check out the total number of enrolled URM students during a 4 year period, you would find the total number of Blacks, Hispanics and Asians enrolled are about the same during that time period. </p>

<p>About 15% are from Virginia and 85% from OOS. About 60% of W&L students are from the South. Not sure about your other questions but my guess is since about half of the students do not require financial aid there is probably a very high percentage of private school students as well as very affluent public school students enrolled at W&L.</p>

<p>@Hunt What do you mean by the “bigger issue is the overall character of the school” and “I think you’re approaching the issue at W&L from the wrong direction?” Please clarify.</p>

<p>As to your question “What can W&L do to improve both numbers of [URM] applicants and matriculating students?” Accepting more URM students would cure that problem but that will mean that White applicants will have to be turned away to make room for URM students unless W&L decides to increase the size of the school.</p>

964

<p>voiceofreason,
Thats an interesting 'set of statistics. I dont see that in the common data set. Where did you find it?</p>

965

<p>voiceofreason, you assuming that Asians applying to W&L have “high test scores” across the board is a stereotype, assuming the opposite of blacks and Latinos another stereotype. You have no proof of that in the pool of W&L applicants. Based on my personal experience teaching, there are a lot of Asians who come in with poor test scores and end up failing - just as many as any other group.</p>

<p>As for “good ECs” - if you want to continue with the stereotyping, many Asian college applicants do not have sports. Sports mean a lot to many schools, as an indicator of character. Stereotyping some more, many Asians have very strong links to their country of origin’s culture - if that comes out in your essay, that’s not in line with an “All-American” image (see Flower Drum Song).</p>

<p>URM enrollment and URM acceptance rates are two different things. Also, the article I linked to noted that W&L consider partial applications as “applied”, and that skews the data. I know many kids who plan to apply to twenty schools, and only finish applying to five. If W&L is one of those 15 applications not finished, they count that student as an applicant - even if there was no specific essay or attempt at W&L required supplemental info.</p>

<p>So that makes W&L look more selective than they are, and it could affect the data, either way, regarding minorities.</p>

<p>And just wondering - if white women and white men are accepted at the same rates, so the discrepancy in male and female acceptance rates is all non-whites (note I am multi-racial, so I am both, not sure how <em>that</em> will get listed for my son). So does that mean that many more female non-whites apply to W&L than male non-whites? Why might that be?</p>

966

<p>@jym626 The data is from 2012-2013 W&L Fact Book page 56. The Fact Book was available online but it has since been password protected.</p>

967

<p>Who publishes this book? Is it on every college?</p>

968

<p>@rhandco Yes, it is based upon generalizations because the specific data of all applicant scores broken down by ethnicity is not available. But the generalizations seem to apply since the number of Asian Johnson Scholars are over three times the level of Asian enrollment. Johnson Scholars are awarded to about the top 9% of an entering class or about the top 2% of all applicants. </p>

<p>Not sure of your generalization on Asians and sports. I don’t think that is true. Now if you are stating that there are few Asians who are top basketball or football stars then I would grant you that but Asians do participate in sports in about the same percentages as any other ethnic group. The sports might not be the same but participation is not that different. Perhaps you have data to suggest otherwise.</p>

<p>Yes enrollment and acceptances are different things but very related. My focus is not so much on the actual enrollment of students but the issue of disproportional acceptance rates between URM/Asians and Whites. It just happens that URM enrollment figures seem to support fine tuning by Admissions to limit the number of URMs attending W&L. If W&L wanted to increase diversity it would select more URMs from the waitlist.</p>

<p>The incomplete application issue is of concern but since there is no breakdown of incomplete applicants by ethnicity so the data is difficult to use for any explanatory purpose. Unless you are aware of data that says most of the incomplete applicants are URM. It does show at what lengths W&L will take to be more selective than it is.</p>

<p>Multi-racial/Other is a separate “ethnic” category and the category of “Unknown races”. I have data on that as well. And yes, more ethnic women than men do apply to W&L, not sure of the reasons but that is why the overall men vs women acceptance rates differ. BTW more White women also apply to W&L than White men but W&L has managed to somehow have almost 50-50 ratio of women to men.</p>

969

<p>@jym626 Each school publishes its Fact Book. Nearly all colleges publish a Fact Book with whatever data it chooses to include. Its generally a more comprehensive data set than the CDS, much of the information overlap but the Fact Books generally have more data. I would link you to the W&L Fact Book but since it is no longer available for public viewing, I don’t see the need for it. For most colleges, the Fact Book is available for public viewing online.</p>

970

<p>This is a good example of a case in which statistics seem to suggest something, but they may really mean something else. You simply can’t assume that the pool of Asian applicants to W&L is similar to the pool at other colleges, or to Asian high school students overall. It may be that some high-scoring Asian kids apply there specifically because of the Johnson scholarship–but perhaps others apply because they live in Virginia, and they may or may not have high scores. There is really no way to truly understand what is happening, unless W&L decides to provide more information. There is not enough evidence there to prove that W&L has a racial bias, or even that it is applying different standards to different racial groups.</p>

971

<p>A low number of any racial group at a school (proportionate to the US population) is not in-and-of-itself evidence of deliberate discrimination by the school against that racial group. U Mich can’t seem to enroll as many black students as it would like, because the ones it does admit often have attractive competing offers elsewhere. Asians are disproportionately represented as NMFs, and Bama give automatic fullrides to NMFs. But Bama still had a very low number of Asians.</p>

972

<p>I am curious about how many college in the US, of similar size and selectivity of W&L, appear to have the same issue.</p>

<p>W&L even has an East Asian minor available, and clearly has Asian professors:
<a href=“http://www.wlu.edu/east-asian-studies-program/faculty-and-staff”>http://www.wlu.edu/east-asian-studies-program/faculty-and-staff&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>What might those professors think about the trends? Would they have standing to go before the admissions committee and flat out ask?</p>

973

<p>@Hunt That is why I seek your input. To get an idea of what could possibly skew the data so drastically regarding URM and specifically Asian American applicants. Why can’t I assume that “the pool of Asian applicants is similar to the pool, at other colleges or to Asian high school students overall.” Aren’t you doing the same thing with regard to your defense of W&L by suggesting that the URM acceptance rate is low because White applicants have higher test scores. What makes you assume that??</p>

<p>My issue is on its face, the statistical evidence suggest something wrong with the admission practices at W&L. It doesn’t help that W&L has taken proactive steps to be more secretive than open by closing access to its Fact Book and not providing explanatory data that would help us understand why the data is so skewed against URM/Asians.</p>

<p>As to your comment that “some high-scoring Asian kids apply there specifically because of the Johnson scholarship” that may explain why some Asians apply but Asians were applying before the Johnson Scholarship and as I showed in prior posting the number of enrolled Asians did not change, in fact the average number of Asian enrollment actually dropped after the Johnson scholarship was offered. </p>

974

<p>I’ve been looking at some on line since I asked that, voiceofreason, as I knew this wast part of the CDS. Cant seem t to find it on every college, and for tose who have it, what they share and/or put in there varies very widely.</p>

975

<p>I’m not defending W&L. This is the problem. I am pointing out the inadequacy of the data you have to either definitively attack or defend W&L. I am also not assuming anything; I am pointing out that the available data can support multiple interpretations.</p>

<p>I will gladly say that if there is any college, based on its history, that I would suspect of discriminating against minorities, it would be W&L. But their rates of minority enrollment (especially of black students) are so low that in this day and age I would expect them to enroll more than that just to avoid accusations of racism. The fact that they haven’t suggests to me that they have trouble getting minority admittees to matriculate. It appears that they had more success this year in getting Asian students to attend. Virginia has about 6% Asian students. W&L now has about 5% Asian students. Is that “enough?” You can’t really say without knowing a lot more about how admissions decisions are made there, and what the applicant pools were like.</p>

976

<p>@GMTplus7 I agree with you, that low population of URM at a school is not evidence of discrimination/bias. That is not my issue with W&L. It is specifically with the data on acceptance rates between URM/Asians and Whites. I could see if there was a significant URM population at W&L that might skew the acceptance data, but W&L is not know for having a very diverse ethnic student population.</p>

<p>@rhandco If you check most top LAC have a much higher level of URM enrollment than W&L. I don’t think the professors have knowledge of the acceptance rate data. This might explain why Asian students win the Johnson Scholarship at such a high rate compared to any other ethnicity. The Johnson Scholarship is awarded by an other committee which includes students and faculty. </p>

<p>Why would any professor at W&L look up the acceptance rate data based upon ethnicity?</p>

977

<p>Who applies to W&L? This is what we don’t really know. Who are those white applicants? Who are those Asian applicants? W&L is quite different from other LACs, so I would not expect it to have the same pool of applicants. It’s a really Southern school. It has a reputation for being not very diverse (as well as other things). It’s not in the Northeast.</p>

<p>It’s an interesting problem–I just think it’s a different problem from whether, say, Amherst is admitting enough Asian students. If you are really curious about this, you might contact somebody in the Asian students’ group at W&L and see what they think about it: <a href=“http://www.wlu.edu/student-life/culture-and-diversity/student-organizations”>http://www.wlu.edu/student-life/culture-and-diversity/student-organizations&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

978

<p>@Hunt I agree with you Black enrollment is low this year but disagree with your assessment that “The fact that they haven’t suggests to me that they have trouble getting minority admittees to matriculate.” First, why do you come to that conclusion? Given that in the past, at least 500 Blacks applied each year from 2008 to 2012.</p>

<p>Here is the breakdown:</p>

<p>2008 825 Blacks applied 43 accepted 15 enrolled Acceptance rate 5.2% Yield 34.9%
2009 600 Blacks applied 33 accepted 19 enrolled Acceptance rate 5.5% Yield 57.6%
2010 649 Blacks applied 36 accepted 13 enrolled Acceptance rate 5.5% Yield 36.1%
2011 521 Blacks applied 42 accepted 13 enrolled Acceptance rate 8.1% Yield 31%
2012 566 Blacks applied 36 accepted 10 enrolled Acceptance rate 6.4% Yield 27.8%</p>

<p>The problem is that the acceptance rate is about 6% for Blacks, not the yield. If W&L increase the acceptance rate to 10% of Black applicants it would nearly double its enrollment of Blacks and with greater presence of Blacks, the yield would improve over time. </p>

<p>The acceptance data for Hispanics and Asians are similar. Unlike many things that are not in the hands of W&L such as the number of minority applicants and yield rates, W&L has control over the acceptance rate which it chooses to wield by limiting URM applicants and thus URM enrollment. If W&L wanted to increase URM enrollment and yield, it only need to look at admitting URM students from the waitlist.</p>

979

<p>It might be that if W&L admitted more minority students, that more would matriculate. But are they getting enough applicants that they’d be willing to admit based on qualifications? You are assuming that they are, at least among Asians, but this may or may not be the case. What compromises would they have to make in order to admit more minority students? As I said above, who applies? It may be that what the school really needs to do is attract more (and better) minority applicants. We can’t really tell that from the data that we have.</p>

<p>I’m influenced a lot by the belief that W&L can’t possibly want to have only 9 black students in its freshman class. That has to constitute a failure in their system. What that failure exactly is, I don’t know.</p>

980

<p>@Hunt you are talking about the percentage of enrollment of URM/Asian, I’m talking about acceptance rates. Yes, W&L is in the South so is Duke and Emory, but Asians/URM attend those institutions. I am also not stating that W&L should have an Asian population percentage wise as large as either of those schools, my concern is about the Acceptance Rates between URM/Asian and Whites. </p>

<p>W&L has a reputation of not being very diverse because it is not very diverse, but even with that reputation over 2000 ethnic minorities still apply to W&L each year. Talk about showing interest, that’s showing interest. The problem is that W&L only accepts a small fraction of those students compared to White applicants.</p>