<p>Back when I was a sophomore or so, one of the reasons I wanted to go to Bowdoin was that it had a relatively high Asian population for a liberal arts college. Personally, being from an area very limited in Asians, I thought it would be pretty interesting that I could be in a place with more people of the same ethnicity of me.</p>
<p>As you can see from this old post, back in 2009, Asians made up about 12% of the Bowdoin population:</p>
<p>I had assumed that this number would be pretty constant over the years, so I didn’t bother to check up on it until after I had finished applying to Bowdoin. However, to my surprise, the Asian percentage here had fallen to…7%.</p>
<p>Now, I’m not really sure what the purpose of this post is. I’m not regretting my choice to apply here. Nor am I going to automatically turn down this place if I’m lucky enough to receive an acceptance in the mail. I guess I just wanted to find somewhere to express my finding. I doubt anybody has an explanation why, and I’m still sure that the college is a great place for Asians. But I’m still wondering, has anyone else noticed this trend?</p>
<p>Starting in 2010, the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) changed its race/ethnicity reporting categories. Before 2010, the categories were:
Non-Resident Alien
Race and Ethnicity unknown
Black, non-Hispanic
American Indian/Alaskan Native
Asian/Pacific Islander
Hispanic
White, non-Hispanic</p>
<p>Beginning in 2010, the new categories are:
Nonresident Alien
Race and Ethnicity unknown
Hispanics of any race</p>
<p>For non-Hispanics only:
4) American Indian or Alaska Native
5) Asian
6) Black or African American
7) Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
8) White
9) Two or more races</p>
<p>It looks like some students who were being counted as Asian prior to 2010 moved to either Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, or Two or more races. </p>
<p>If you look at any school, there will probably be shifts between pre-2010 data and post-2010 data due to the new categories. </p>
<p>For Bowdoin, from 2009-2010 to 2010-2011, the only category that had a slight percentage increase was Hispanic. That’s because of the new reporting requirements. You are initially asked if you are a non-resident alien, Hispanic (can be any race), or not Hispanic. If you reply Hispanic, you do not report a race. </p>
<p>Given Bowdoin’s high persistence/5-yr graduation rate (over 90%), the population is not changing drastically from year to year. So I think your concerns are due to the new reporting.</p>
<p>For Full-time undergraduates: in 2009-2010, there were 205 Asians reported, 12% of the population. In the 2010-2011 Common Data Set, there were 128 Asians, 3 Pacific Islanders, and 108 in the Two or More category. Given that the latter two categories didn’t exist in 2009-2010, I’m guessing formerly-reported as Asian students didn’t just graduate or drop out, but are now being counted as Pacific Islander (which was part of Asian before) AND some of them are now being counted in Two or More. Black/African American went from 115 in 2009-2010 to 89 in 2010-2011. I’m guessing some of them are now reported in the Two or More category as well.</p>
<p>Yes, it has gone from 12% to 7%. However, the new Two or More category + the new Pacific Islander category combined are over 6%. So I doubt the actual diversity has changed. The white population went from 66% to 65%, so that hasn’t increased.</p>