<p>Let me be clear. I don’t mean that these percentages are fabricated with some nefarious intent. I just mean that a good many of these schools no longer even ask about religious affiliation and the best anybody can do is guess.</p>
<p>“Everyone knows” that a lot of Jewish kids go to Emory, so somebody guesses 30%. If you stop to consider Emory’s primary southeast draw, that number is very hard to believe. Emory more Jewish than Columbia in NYC? Really? That would be mind-boggling.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I don’t think the numbers are correct for Michigan either. There are lots of Jews here, but nearly 1 out of every 5? No.</p>
<p>Emory is in or adjacent to Druid Hills which is a strongly Jewish area of Atlanta.</p>
<p>From my memory Harvard it seemed like 50% Jewish, but I am sure that was really only my House or a quirk of who my friends ended up being.</p>
<p>I think in major metropolitan areas the Jewish Federation figures out the percentage of Jewish families by tracking who actually donates to a charity or belongs to a synagogue, then DOUBLES it. In major metropolitan areas, the parents of these kids only identify themselves formally in half the cases! BTW, synagogue affiliation percentages are higher in small towns and rural areas because joining is the way to find other Jewish people. </p>
<p>To me it’s pretty logical that the kids echo the parents’ lifestyle to this extent. If a Jewish organization on campus looks to ANY formal indicator (who joined Hillel, who showed up for a service…) and double that, they might actually have a reasonable guestimate of the numbers of Jewish kids on a campus.</p>
<p>I have no formal studies here, but am just extending the logic that I know about how Federations estimate adult populations.</p>
<p>Just saw a post/thread on the UW (Madison) CC site with a link to the current issue magazine cover- it features Bucky Badger with two UW students. Historically Jews went to Wisconsin because they were not discriminated against there like they were in too many colleges in the US. The trend continued. OOS tuition jumped after the riots of the late '60’s- those “outside agitators from NY” I seem to remember hearing about locally back then (not that there was truth to the statement).</p>
<p>
Actually, the Common App has an optional “fill in the blank” question that asks for the student’s religious preference. Since the vast majority of schools are using this, they are all still asking. Whether or not this has anything to do with Hillel’s numbers is another question, though.</p>
<p>Here ya go. [Grits</a> and Gefilte: Jewish Life at Emory University](<a href=“http://www.hillel.org/about/news/2006/apr/20060425_gritsgefilte.htm]Grits”>http://www.hillel.org/about/news/2006/apr/20060425_gritsgefilte.htm)</p>
<p>Emory’s draw is national. IIRC, Emory has one of the higher OOS percentages for a university. It’s hardly regional. 64% come from outside the Southeast. Just for example, a school like Swarthmore is slightly more regional at 42% mid-atlantic according to their website.</p>
<p>Emory started a Jewish Studies major in 2001 or so, when my D was graduating. She didn’t go there, but I remember they had great scholarships to attract students interested in that major. It’s not surprising that the # of Jewish students has increased.</p>
<p>I used to work at a Hillel, and when we answered the National Hillel questionaire, we made our best guess at the numbers on campus. There really are no hard data anywhere.</p>
<p>This magazine (Reform Judaism) has been publishing this list for years, and we’ve been talking about it and posting links to this list on CC since the 2006 edition:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/309087-jewish-college-life-take-2-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/309087-jewish-college-life-take-2-a.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/3736075-post12.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/3736075-post12.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/3738168-post23.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/3738168-post23.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/472876-whoa-jews.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/472876-whoa-jews.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060090732-post39.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060090732-post39.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/799949-comfortable-jewish-population.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/799949-comfortable-jewish-population.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1063425069-post10.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1063425069-post10.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/589063-schools-recruiting-jewish-students.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/589063-schools-recruiting-jewish-students.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1061202279-post1.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1061202279-post1.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/658043-narrowing-down-colleges-nw-rice-vandy.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/658043-narrowing-down-colleges-nw-rice-vandy.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1061882468-post6.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1061882468-post6.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/tulane-university/763666-tulane-jewish.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/tulane-university/763666-tulane-jewish.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1063167960-post15.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1063167960-post15.html</a></p>
<p>
What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.
<p>I’m surprised by people being surprised by Tulane’s presence. That seems like one that has always had the reputation of being a heavily Jewish school. As far back as I can remember, Tulane was nicknamed Jewlane and the former women’s college component, Sophie Newcomb, had a similar appellation. Now whether those appellations were done affectionately by members of the tribe or disparagingly by others I can’t say. </p>
<p>And I don’t know why WashU would be such a surprise. Huge, very sophisticated and socially active Jewish community in St Louis. My guess is larger and more influential than any other Midwestern city except for Chicago. And being very familiar with both, WashU is simply NU in a smaller city as far as I am concerned!</p>
<p>Totally correct Pizzagirl. I wouldn’t even be surprised if St. Louis were “more Jewish” on a per capita basis, but in any case it would be close. And also dead on about Tulane, it has always been known among the Jewish community throughout the country. I wouldn’t be surprised if some research turned up a connection between the strong Jewish community in New Orleans in the 19th and early 20th century, and the Tulane/Newcomb connection.</p>
<p>It would be interesting to see the data of % of kids from various ethnic/religious groups that attend college. I know the % of Jewish kids that go would be quite high, but I wonder just how high. Maybe it is in one of those references jym posted, but I know it has to be out there somewhere. It is easy to find the % of kids in college that are Jewish, but I am talking about the % of high school seniors that end up in college. It would be equally interesting for various racial and religious groupings.</p>
<p>Oh, and to address your comment PG, in my experience the “Jewlane” reference is probably made about 40% benign, 10% malicious, and 50% where you are just not quite sure, lol. I think we all know how that goes.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It may seem to defy logic, but I doubt that it defies reality.</p>
<p>I am not familiar with Yale. I am familiar with the University of Maryland (my son graduated from that school 2 years ago) and Cornell (my daughter is a student there now, and I graduated from the same university in the 1970s). The numbers for those two schools do not seem out of line. In fact, for Cornell, the current 23% figure is actually lower than my recollection of the proportion of Jewish students on campus in my time, but I think this reflects the increased proportion of non-white students at the university. </p>
<p>Hillel may have exaggerated the figures a little, but not a lot.</p>
<p>There is no way Yale is 50% Jewish undergrad. For example, this publication has it between 20-30% [Jewish</a> Student Populations at Various Colleges & Universities | InLikeMe](<a href=“http://inlikeme.com/jewish-student-populations-various-colleges-universities.html]Jewish”>http://inlikeme.com/jewish-student-populations-various-colleges-universities.html)</p>
<p>and this one has it at 22.6% [Private</a> Colleges with the Highest Percentage of Jewish Students | InsideCollege.com](<a href=“The Best College Rankings and Lists | Inside College | CollegeXpress”>The Best College Rankings and Lists | Inside College | CollegeXpress)</p>
<p>That last has Tulane at about 25%, and I know for a fact that is accurate within a couple of percentage points. Yale at 20-25% sounds right. I think whoever said the 1500 must include grad students was also correct. Maybe profs too, lol.</p>
<p>Nobody said that Yale was 50 percent Jewish. The original document in the first post said 27 percent. People have been interpreting that figure in conjunction with information on the proportion of students at Yale who are white and suggesting that it implies that nearly half of the white students (not the total students) at Yale are Jewish.</p>
<p>In fact, I would say there was a time 25-30 years ago in which it was perceived that there were 3 equally good southeast schools – Tulane, Duke and Vanderbilt – but that Tulane had the most northeast “flair” of those three and therefore would be most welcoming to Jews either from the northeast or midwest. “Smart Jewish students to Tulane” has been around forever.</p>
<p>Marion - you are right, my bad. I should have read it more carefully. There are 5240 undergrads, 70% white. We will assume the number of African-American, Latino, and Asian Jews is small enough to be insignificant. So that is 3670 whites, and if 1500 are really Jewish, that is about 41%. Still seems high to me, but it almost agrees with the 27% number of Jewish students in the overall population (it comes to 28.6%, but it will vary year to year of course). If the number is really 22%, that would be 1153 Jewish students, which would be 31.4% of the white students. So I suppose we can safely say the true number is somewhere between 31% and 41% of the white students. I think we can also safely say that has been analyzed enough, lol.</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone. I’m pretty familiar with Emory since I lived in Georgia for thirty years and my daughter applied there…</p>
<p>BTW, Emory is one of the few colleges that reports the religious breakdown of its undergrad population to USNEWS. They do not report the 30% number given by Emory Hillel. Maybe they should compare notes.</p>
<p>I am very skeptical of any college data that is not collected and reported by the school’s Institutional Research department. For example, I would not be surprised to hear observation that Havard today must be “nearly half Asian” despite the fact that a precise percentage is collected and reported by the University each year.</p>
<p>BTW, Yale is not 70% white. It’s 59% white/unreported. If you counted all internationals as white (not accurate, given the percentages from Asia today), it would only reach 67%.</p>
<p>Might be interesting to find out the Asian+Jewish: other ratio of the top northeastern universities.</p>