Black Student Enrollment at Selective Universities: Reporting on the Class of 2012

The JBHE (Journal of Blacks in Higher Education) has released its annual tally of the admission rates and enrollment numbers for Black students at the nations 30 most selective universities. Here are some of the highlights from the 2008 – 2009 school year:

At only 5 of these highly selective institutions did Black students made up at least 10% of the freshman class. They were:

• Columbia University (12.1 percent)
• University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill (10.8%)
• Stanford University (10.5%)
• Duke University (10.1%)
• Yale University (10.0%)

These five highly selective universities had the lowest proportion of Black students in the freshman class:

• The University of California – Los Angeles (4.8%)
• Cornell University (4.5%)
• Northwestern University (4.5%)
• University of California – Berkeley (3.6%)
• University of Notre Dame (3.0%)

The highly selective university that saw the greatest increase in the number of incoming Black freshmen was Stanford (from 143 in ’07 to 180 in ’08, an increase of 25.9%).

The highly selective university with the greatest decrease in the number of incoming Black freshmen was Vanderbilt University (from 172 in ’07 to 105 in ’08, or 39%).

The highly selective institution with the highest acceptance rate for Black students in 2008 was the University of Chicago (48.7%).

The highly selective institution with the lowest acceptance rate for Black students in 2008 was the University of California – Berkeley (14.8%).

The following institutions declined to report their Black student acceptance rates: Columbia University, Stanford University, Duke University, Yale University, Dartmouth College, Princeton University, and the University of Michigan.

Posted by Ajuan Mance