<p>I don't understand the question.</p>
<p>I am also surprised by the Northwestern number. I thought (but can't find anywhere online, maybe it was in an email which I have deleted) I recently read an article about the various stats for the current freshman class which said that roughly 20% of the incoming class identified themselves as Jewish, and about 20% were Asian.</p>
<p>Perhaps I shouldn't have used your sentence in my quote. I am just asking if there are these high percentages of Jewish students in these universities as in the original post and these numbers are accurate, then shouldn't these universities be more diversified in a world that is becoming more global ?
I am not advocating quotas.
How do they get these statistics ?</p>
<p>Just a student's 2 cents - I'm the child of one Jewish parent and one Presbyterian parent, I forget what I put on the Common App but I believe Jewish since I identify SLIGHTLY more with Judaism but I'm REALLY not religious. Anyway, I know many half/half kids put down Jewish rather than Christian, so maybe that's why the percentages are so high as well.
As for diversity....Jewish children tend to be taught that education is important as a group, but remember, Jews are only what 1% of the world population and 2% of America...so they are an underrepresented minority on the world stage and contribute to diversity.</p>
<p>
[quote]
These figures are guesstimates generated by an overly zealous Hillel organization.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I agree. I think I've read somewhere that Hillel guesstimates the number of on campus Jewish students by counting students who participated at services on religious holidays. But I really think they are responsible for inflating the numbers. More Jewish students on campus, more $$$ for Hillel.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Jews are only what 1% of the world population and 2% of America...so they are an underrepresented minority on the world stage and contribute to diversity.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Usually, the definition of "underrepresented minority" is exactly the opposite of what you write here. Colleges talk about underrepresented minority groups with reference to some groups being scarce at colleges although (fairly) commonplace (but still minorities) in the general population. With respect to how many Americans are Jews (by whoever's count), you wouldn't say that Jewish people are "underrepresented" in the enrollment of most colleges. The contrasting example of first-generation immigrants from Mexico, also a minority in the overall United States population, should make the point clear.</p>
<p>Even Hillel's estimates, which I agree are inflated, are lower than the estimates in the chart from Reform Judaism Magazine. For instance, Hillel says Yale's undergrad population is 1200/5300 -- a little less than 23%, compared to the 30% reported in RJM. </p>
<p>cbreeze -- Bear in mind that the colleges featured in the article in Inside Higher Ed -- schools like Franklin & Marshall, Allegheny, Elon, Knox -- have historically low numbers of Jewish applicants. So at those schools, Jewish students will contribute to diversity on campus.</p>
<p>Re post #27 -that's exactly right; the OP article is describing colleges without significant Jewish populations. The colleges with high Jewish populations are not recruiting more.</p>
<p>Re Northwestern: It has been a magnet for Jewish students for a long time -- so long that some of the major contributors after whom various schools and buildings are named are Jewish. Consider the Feinberg School of Medicine and the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.</p>
<p>As for the Ivy League, it seems to have about the same percentage of Jewish students that it did a generation ago (after the quotas vanished). But perhaps the campuses may seem more Jewish than they used to be because the percentage of white students as part of the overall student body is lower. Thus, Jews represent a higher percentage of the white population than they used to.</p>
<p>But of course, Columbia and Penn and Cornell and Northwestern are not actively recruiting Jewish students. They don't have to.</p>
<p>There are many colleges, including some that you might not think of if you aren't Jewish (such as the University of Maryland at College Park) that have thriving Jewish communities. Such communities perpetuate themselves. Jewish students have a wide variety of campuses to choose from where they can get whatever else they're looking for in a college (academic level, size, particular specializations, etc.) as well as finding enough of a Jewish student life to please them. I think it would be difficult for other colleges to get on Jewish students' radar screen.</p>
<p>The statistics can come from many sources, not just Hillel. Many schools ask for religion on their housing questionnaires, for example. Some of the statistics come from those who sign up for kosher meals. Or the number of kids who show up for High Holiday services.</p>
<p>As for diversity - as has often been pointed out on these boards, being Jewish is no longer considered an ethnicity but only a religion. (I disagree with this characterization, but I digress). Secular schools don't ask for religion on applications. And going by last name is no longer a reasonable way to determine a student's religion. I know several Schwartzes and Greenbergs who were born of Christian mothers and raised and consider themselves Christian, and I know of several Gottis and Bataglias who were born of Jewish mothers and were raised and consider themselves Jewish.</p>
<p>^^In a rare act of reverse discrimination, one of my D's friends at Y was held out of participation in a sporting event because the coach assumed, based on the "berg" suffix, that she couldn't play on a recent religious holiday. Once that was cleared up, she was off the bench! This would never have happened in our home state, and she was caught completely off guard and hadn't thought to speak up about her lack of religious restrictions that day. The Ivies/other schools with large Jewish populations can be a bit of a culture shock/learning curve for those who didn't grow up in the NE.</p>
<p>Also published annually in the Reform Judiasm Magazine cited by the OP is a list of the top 60 schools Jewish kids choose <a href="http://reformjudaismmag.org/_kd/Items/actions.cfm?action=Show&item_id=1380&destination=ShowItem%5B/url%5D">http://reformjudaismmag.org/_kd/Items/actions.cfm?action=Show&item_id=1380&destination=ShowItem</a> (unless you have incredible eyesight you'll have to enlarge the screen shot to read the list)</p>
<p>*** oops, I think this link is already posted......</p>
<p>This post caught my eye because S1 is at a school that makes these lists. Two years back during the college search, an acquaintance stopped me and asked where he wanted to go. When I told her, the first thing she said was "But it's so Jewish!" Looking back at that comment (and at comments posted here) there probably IS something to the liberal/conservative thing (she happens to be one of the most conservative people I've ever met). It's considered a liberal campus, but S says it's somewhat more balanced politically than many college guides would have you believe. </p>
<p>Now that he is there, most of his friends actually are jewish, but he says none of them, Christian, Jewish, or otherwise (himself included) consider themselves particularly religious, and quite a few are atheists.</p>
<p>^^And there's the rub for Jewish students who want a rich Jewish environment on campus. The percentages trumpeted in the Reform Jewish Magazine article (whether inflated or not) don't mean much, and neither do the raw numbers. Kids have to look beyond the statistics to find how active the Hillel is, whether there's a full (or even a partial) Kosher meal plan, and whether religious services (Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, pluralistic) are offered on campus or at a nearby synagogue.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>If these numbers are accurate at all, it IS interesting to me that Princeton has such a smaller proportionate Jewish representation than Harvard or Yale. That was true when I went to college, too, but they were somewhat embarassed about it. </p></li>
<li><p>I don't think you can tell much about Dartmouth, though, from its absence. The list only has the 30 top schools by absolute number and by percentage, and the percentage curve flattens out very quickly. Dartmouth is meaningfully smaller than the other Ivies, and not all that much bigger than Wesleyan, so its absence from the absolute-numbers list doesn't mean much, and its absence from the percentage list may not reflect a very meaningful difference, either.</p></li>
<li><p>You could have fooled me that the University of Chicago is "less Jewish" than the Ivy League. The majority of kids that I know who have gone there recently from this area are Jewish. And, of course, it's closely associated with figures like Saul Bellow, Leo Strauss, Allen Bloom, Milton Friedman, George Stigler, Gary Becker, Myron Scholes, Richard Posner, Steven Levitt . . . . It has the Pritzker School of Medicine. Its President and Board Chair are both Jewish. It has a famous annual debate about the comparative virtues of latkes vs. hamantashen, for goodness' sake. In other words, there's no particular reason for a Jewish kid to be uncomfortable there.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>
[quote]
It has a famous annual debate about the comparative virtues of latkes vs. hamantashen
[/quote]
</p>
<p>So did one of the residential colleges at Princeton when I was there in the late 70's. I think I might have been there at one of the highest points for Jewish enrollment. From what I understand, when Fred Hargadon became the Director of Admissions in the 80's the proportion of Jewish students dropped quite a bit. </p>
<p>In looking for some verification, I came across this article, written in 1999: Enrollment</a> of Jews at Princeton Drops by 40 Percent in 15 Years</p>
<p>
[quote]
Jewish enrollment at Princeton Universitysite of F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise has dropped by 40 percent in the last 15 years. According to The Daily Princetonian , the campus newspaper, Jewish students now make up about 10 percent of the freshmen class. That is the same as the number that Harvard University president Abbott Lawrence Lowell tried to imposehe wanted to establish a 10 percent quota of Jews at Harvardin 1922. In 1985, that number was 16 percent, according to The Princetonian .
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Interesting how history influences current day decisions. UW-Madison, which historically never discriminated against Jews, and therefore has a larger number of Jewish students than the state's Jewish population would suggest, now has an "ethnic studies" requirement. There are history courses about the experience of Native Americans, Blacks, Hispanics and Jews in the US that satisfy this requirement.</p>
<p>ColdWind-</p>
<p>You don't know Dartmouth at all. Dartmouth voted 77% for Gore/ Nadar (9% for Nadar) in 2000, 85% for Kerry in 2004, and an unofficial Dartmouth poll showed over 85% for Obama. The reason Nadar isn't popular at dartmouth is because, simply put, he isn't popular anywhere. </p>
<p>I for one fully blame him for the debacle the last 8 years have been.</p>
<p>Fred Hargadon’s impact on Jewish enrollment at Princeton is detailed in Karabel’s book, The Chosen. Hargadon changed the system of evaluating candidates during his tenure as dean of admissions. Among the most visible effects of the changes he implemented was a steep decline in the number of Jewish students – from a high of 20% in the late 70s to 10% in 1990. Allegedly to enhance Princeton's position vis-a-vis its competitors (HYS), Hargadon de-emphasized intellectual ability, rejecting a much higher percentage of academic “1s” than his predecessors, and emphasized factors like athletic ability and geographic diversity. The effect, if not the intent, was to dramatically reduce Jewish enrollment.</p>
<p>slipper: I know Dartmouth College quite well. (What you probably meant to write is that you respectfully disagree with my statement that Dartmouth College & Princeton University are the two most conservative members of the Ivy League.) You refuse to accept that the terms "most conservative" or "more conservative" are comparative in nature. Dartmouth & Princeton remain the two most conservative members of the Ivy League. College students tend to vote overwhelmingly Democratic. I am a conservative on most issues, yet I have never supported either Bush. And I was just quoting what Ralph Nader said during his recent visit to Dartmouth.
slipper1234: examples of comparative statements: Dartmouth College is more liberal than Davidson College. Dartmouth College is more conservative than Columbia University.</p>