<p>I'd like to hear what you all have to say about your school's diversity and acceptance of diversity.</p>
<p>I am an Asian-American, but I don't really hang out with people of my own race. I'm a southerner and for the most part, I like to be around white people (especially other southerners.) I have no problem socializing with all types of people, but when it comes to more intimate and close friendships, I just do not relate that well to other Asian-Americans (especially the engineers and pre-meds.)</p>
<p>I've moved enough to know that some schools are very accepting of everyone and friend groups have a wide variety of races. Then there are schools who claim to be diverse but are only diverse in that they have many minorities present, however the students all stay with their own races and don't try to be friends with people outside their race. Obviously, I am looking for colleges most like the first school I described. </p>
<p>I am particularly interested in hearing from people similar to me (who do not fit their stereotypes) but comments from anyone who can speak about their school's diversity will be helpful!</p>
<p>rjkofnovi, puts “diversity” in a whole new light, doesn’t it? UMich is making out a little better, but it has its problems, too, as do many contributors to the post below.</p>
<p>Yes Michigan does have its problems with diversity and like UCLA is trying its best to become more diverse. Of course I would never state that U-M was “arguably the most diverse school in the nation.”</p>
<p>That’s because it isn’t anywhere close to being true of Michigan, and would likely be a difficult argument to support.</p>
<p>Michigan is 65% white, and 12% asian. Those two races are nearly 80% of the student body with one largely dominating; UCLA, on the other hand, is around 30% white, 30% Asian, 15% hispanic, and 4% black. The university also has a fair number of native american applicants and international students, especially for fall 2014. You can read about the Fall 2014 applicants here:</p>
<p>While UCLA’s racial diversity is helped by it being in a more diverse state, it’s also a much more diverse university socio-economically. UCLA was ranked as the most economically diverse elite school (i.e. those in the top 25) with 38% of Pell grant recipients; </p>
<p>Michigan’s percentage of Pell grant recipients is so small, their student news paper even felt compelled to write about how much of an issue is it at the university (as have other Michigan alumni in this forum):</p>
<p>The only area of diversity UCLA is weak in is geographic diversity, and even that’s starting to change.</p>
<p>Diversity isn’t just some PR word UCLA uses to make them sound good, unlike other universities. UCLA calls diversity a “core value,” and from what I’ve seen it’s true. If you want an in-depth read on what the university does to be diverse, you can check out this link:</p>
<p>“Now where’s the support for Michigan being ‘arguably the most diverse school in the country’?”</p>
<p>There is no argument. Michigan is not nearly as diverse as it should be. Then again, it doesn’t have 40% of its population latino or over 13% Asian as does the state of California. Asians are not a minority when it comes to matriculation of college students, especially in California. While 15% of the student body is Latino and sounds impressive, it is from a state that has well over 14,000,000 “documented” residents from that ethnic group, . Let’s be honest, when universities claim diversity they are most referring to the numbers of black students. UCLA is exceptionally weak in this area, as are most major universities. Here’s a good example of diversity at UCLA:</p>
<p>I’m glad we can find something we agree on ;)</p>
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<p>I don’t care what most universities claim what they take about diversity. That’s not what UCLA claims or cares about. </p>
<p>UCLA isn’t ‘exceptionally weak’ with the amount of black students it has either. Black students comprise around 3.9% of the student population at UCLA. Michigan, with around 5%, isn’t much better. However, blacks comprise a much higher percentage of the population of Michigan ( the state) than they do in California (14% vs 7%) So if either of these two universities is ‘exceptionally weak’ at ‘diversity’ it’s Michigan.</p>
<p>The lady protests too much, methinks. UCLA has no right to crow about its diversity on a national stage when only 4% of its students are black and only 75 out of 19K male enrollees are black. You have no case. </p>
<p>You can show this figure to your state legislature, but don’t come to a national stage and shout “UCLA is arguably the most diverse school in the nation” and expect anyone to believe you. If you want to be a national university, then increase your URM enrollment and socioeconomic demographics to reflect it. That’ll cost a lot of money and getting that from a state legislature that makes OOS education so damn expensive will not be easy. In the mean time, tone it down. Like it or not, you’re a state school, with all the problems that come with that. Make your case to your own constituents or expect to be a state school for a long time.</p>
<p>I could say as much to UMich and a lot of state schools, except I hear less crowing about diversity on the national stage.</p>
<p>Since when does diversity rely solely on how much of one race is or isn’t present within a university? Just because UCLA doesn’t have very many black freshman doesn’t mean that it isn’t diverse.</p>
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<p>I’ve provided my arguments with support above. If that fails to convince you, then so be it.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure what you mean by ‘national university.’ Outside of black students (which isn’t low compared to California’s demographics) UCLA has a number of URM students at the university. And as i noted earlier, it’s the most socioeconomically diverse elite school. </p>
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<p>What does being a state school have to do with being diverse? The two aren’t mutually exclusive.</p>
<p>43% of UCLA is Asian. Ridiculously high number if you ask me as compared to the overall instate population of 13%. . I suppose the diversity is in which Asian country the students claim as their origin. Korea? China? Japan? etc. etc. </p>
<p>I was trying to find this quote for an earlier post but didn’t find it (I thought it was Kiplinger but it turned out to be Princeton Review)</p>
<p>“In a word, the University of California, Los Angeles is about diversity — in what you can study, in what you can do with your free time, in ethnicity, in gender and sexuality, in everything,” the Princeton Review said.</p>