Nonetheless, Hamilton offers an offsetting legacy from its innovative history. That is, having arisen in its modern form from two colleges of different emphases and characteristics, its academic and architectural/spatial range should appeal to students (of any ethnic/cultural background) seeking intellectual and aesthetic variety. With respect to your daughter’s particular interests, Hamilton, as you noted, offers an uncommon major in public policy, as well as a popular D.C. term suitable for students interested in this field.
Many on that list have a smaller % of white students than the % of whites in the American population as a whole so they are “more diverse” than the general population. However, how that feels obviously depends on where you come from and the mix of “non white students.”
@ProfSD - What are some schools that would seem to be an academic fit for this student that would be more diverse than the ones mentioned?
My D attends Vassar, which is quite diverse for a NE LAC, but it is much less diverse than her high school.
This is my last post on this. I was not trying to hijack the thread. I was merely pointing out that “racially and ethnically diverse” is a relative term.
@elena13
Everyone has a different percentage that they believe meets the benchmark for being “diverse.” That is up to the student and family to decide. For some, 70% Caucasian is too much, for others 50% Caucasian is too much. For others, they are looking for a certain percentage of students in their own racial or ethnic group. Maybe they want a college that is at least 10% Asian, and they are not as concerned about the numbers of Black and Latinx students. Or maybe they refuse to attend a college that has less than 5% Black students, even if other racial and ethnic groups are well represented. It really depends on what the individual wants.
My advice for families: pull common data sets for the colleges you may want to attend and crunch the numbers. If it meets YOUR standards for diversity, then fine. But, understand that students have different definitions of what it means to have a “diverse” campus. Especially when the student population is already small. (After all, 5% at a school of 2,000 students is much different than 5% at Penn State.) Common data sets will give you actual numbers of students on campus that fit each racial and ethnic category. They break everything down, including gender. We found them invaluable when evaluating colleges for D20, and will use them again for D23.
"My D attends Vassar, which is quite diverse for a NE LAC, but it is much less diverse than her high school. "
I grew up for a few years in Poughkeepsie, ten minutes from Vassar, while we’re not that far from Connecticut, we’re not actually in New England. Vassar’s vibe is probably more NYC art scene than NE LAC.
“For others, they are looking for a certain percentage of students in their own racial or ethnic group.”
Good point, a white person saying they want a diverse campus is much different than a black or Latinx saying they want a diverse campus. One of the Hispanic presenters at a college I thought was diverse said that there were not a lot of people that looked like him (his words). He would not consider the campus diverse, where a white person would. If he didn’t think his campus was diverse, most NE LACs are not either.
Amherst is diverse not only for a NE LAC, but for a school in general.
OP is from Nebraska, a state where the white population is close to 90%. She’ll likely find more diversity at any school listed on this thread than her current high school.
Last month my daughter was accepted ED at Amherst with numbers and personality profile similar to you daughter’s. She visited many northeastern LACs, including Bowdoin, Midd, Bates, Swat, and felt Amherst was the best match. Had she not gotten in, she would have also applied to Colby, Hamilton, Connecticut College and several non-LACs, if that helps at all. Anyway–don’t give up on Amherst. If that’s where she wants to go, pursue it. The impression I’ve gotten is that Amherst wants academically high-achieving kids who also have a tangible non-academic passion. It doesn’t seem to matter if it is something an applicant has won awards for or competed in (my daughter didn’t have that), as long as it is something that can be articulated and the passion described exuberantly. While my daughter is a long-time swimmer, she is too slow to be recruited or even swim competitively in college, so I don’t know if that mattered or not.
There are a lot of wonderful things about Amherst which allowed it to separate from the other schools, not the least of which is the availability of classes at UMass, which is so close (which can be important in a science field that may be under-taught at small LACs).
I assume your daughter is an IB diploma candidate? If so, I’m a believer that it is a huge benefit–it’s considered the gold standard, and many schools really credit the experience and seem to admit IB candidates at a higher percentage than non-IB kids (there was a study 10 years ago that showed this, which has not been repeated since). So her chances may be higher than you think. Amherst also accepts something like 38-40% of ED applicants, which, even though many are athletes, is still higher than most of the other LACs.
That’s it for now–conf call about to start. Happy to add more about our experience with Amherst and my daughter’s decision process; just PM me. Good luck!
“Amherst is diverse not only for a NE LAC, but for a school in general.”
That’s only if you’re considering other private universities in the northeast, once you compare to a public university, it’s not that diverse, by race or income. Take UC San Diego vs Amherst:
You’re likely to get that, to some extent, at almost any selective private LAC. Although Amherst has made strides in recent years, more than 40% of entering freshman are full-pay students there. That qualifies in my book as “a bunch” of very affluent kids. At most peer LACs, that percentage is higher (up to 65% or so at some). And keep in mind that some of these schools grant n-b aid to families making 3x or more the median income.
Racial/ethnic diversity may depend on definitions, but you’re likely to see AA representation below 5% at some of them. Again, Amherst may be better than most.
@thelonsiusmonk Comparing publics and privates are tough for a couple reasons. First, publics draw the majority of kids from in-state, so diversity numbers are going to reflect that, which is why in your example you see UC SanDiego with a very high % of Asian students. Second the in-state public tuition is far lower than privates and many lower income kids believe they can never afford a private, so they don’t even look at those.
But UCSD is more racially diverse than Amherst only if you define diverse as “divergent from the norm or default” and then define the norm or default as white. If you break down the ethnicity of internationals, I’m sure the plurality of Asians at UCSD is as high as the plurality of whites at Amherst, and while the minority of Latinx is higher, the minority of Blacks is much much lower.
In fact, this would be the case at almost any any selective private college in general. If we move to the “highly selective” (acceptance rate <30%), it would not be “almost any”, but “any”.
When looking at all types of diversity, one should not look at the diversity of the accepted students, but of the actual student body. For example, Amherst’s accepted class of 2023 had 56% who identified as PoC. However, in their actual student body, the percent is only 45%. This is true from Wellesley, Pomona, Swarthmore, and the rest of the more ethnically diverse selective LACs. All have much higher diversity in their accepted students than in their matriculated students.
While the percent of minorities who are accepted demonstrates the interest of a college in diversity, the actual diversity experienced by a student attending the college is that of the students who are actually attending the college.
Very useful information @theloniusmonk , and it demonstrates my point even though it compares public and private colleges. If you are Black, your feelings about racial and ethnic diversity at UCSD would be much different than Latinx, Asian, or International students. It might be diverse, but at only 2% Black, most students from that group would probably feel VERY isolated. For Black students, Amherst would win over UCSD in that category. Even Hamilton has a higher percentage of Black students (5%) than that. Yet for white students, I imagine UCSD would seem to be the epitome of a college that welcomes students from all racial and ethnic groups.
10% of a tiny school is a much smaller number than 5% of a huge school. You could spend four years at the tiny school and never sit next to or eat lunch with a student from one of the “less represented” groups. There are just fewer of them.