<p>It troubles us greatly too–and we’re trying to improve it. Unfortunately we have very few Af-Am students that apply and even fewer choose to attend, despite the fact that we have awesome summer programs for URMs + Women, a strong recruiting effort, and scholarships for URMs + Women as well. I can’t say much more than that as I don’t know that much more. You can find our Office for Minority students here: [Office</a> for Minority Student Education at Caltech](<a href=“http://www.mse.caltech.edu/]Office”>http://www.mse.caltech.edu/)</p>
<p>Hopefully the percentage of Af Ams will increase as dramatically as the percentage of women has in the past few years. I think we could all use some more diversity.</p>
<p>Edit: I would hazard a guess that part of the problem is that there’s some critical mass–it might that because we have so few Af Ams that this keeps others away. By the way, it’s worth noting that even with that 1% or so, many of them (at least that I know, anecdotally) are actually just African, not actually African-American, and the cultures are very different. One of my friends is from Nigeria, another guy I know is from Kenya.</p>