Ivy League melting pot?

The Class of 2005 may be the most selective in Penn's history,
with the lowest acceptance rate and the highest SAT scores, but in
terms of diversity, none of the statistics have improved.

Compared with its Ivy League peers, the Class of 2005 is lagging
behind in their percentages of African-American and Latino
students.

The statistics for the freshmen of 2005 are eerily similar to the
Class of 2004. In fact, they are exactly the same.

Both years, 7 percent of the class has been African American.
Seven percent has been Latino, and 23 percent has been Asian
American. Native American students make up less than 1 percent
in both classes.

And according to some student leaders, Penn needs to do more
to make sure the statistics aren't exactly the same next year.



Although Penn generally stacks up in the middle of the Ivy League
schools, there are a few that have been able to draw a more
diverse freshman class.

This year, perhaps due to a modification in its financial aid
packages, Princeton University's freshman class boasts the
second largest percentage of African-American students in the
school's history, and the largest in 22 years. The school's
percentage of Asian-American and Latino students has also
increased since last year.

And though some schools may have higher percentages than
others, none of the Ivy League's minority statistics are
representative of the U.S. population as a whole.

According to the 2000 Census, 12 percent of the U.S. population
is African American. Penn's Class of 2005, however, is only 7
percent African American.

Thirteen percent of the U.S. population is Hispanic, compared
with 7 percent of Penn's freshmen.

But across the Ivy League, Penn's Class of 2005 boasts the most
Asian-American students in any of the current Ivy League
freshmen classes.

In some ways, the University may be at a geographic
disadvantage compared to other schools.

According to statistics provided by U.S. News and World Report,
southern and western schools often enjoy higher minority
percentages than schools on the East Coast. Nonetheless, other
Philadelphia schools have achieved higher diversity statistics than
Penn among their incoming students.

Within Philadelphia, Penn remains behind some of its peers in
higher education in terms of the diversity of its entering class.
African Americans make up 27 percent of Temple University's
freshman class. Eleven percent of La Salle University's is African
American, and nine percent of Drexel University freshmen are
African American.



To help diversify Penn's freshman class, student leaders would
like the University to make a more concerted effort to attract -- and
retain -- students of different backgrounds.

Dimitri Dube, Co-Political Action Coordinator for UMOJA, is
distressed that Penn's numbers are not as high Harvard
University's, with over 9 percent of their incoming freshmen African
American and another 9 percent Latino. He had, however,
anticipated that other Philadelphia schools would have higher
numbers.

He said he believes that even though many were accepted,
talented minority students will look toward other schools before
coming to Penn for two main reasons -- financial aid packages
and faculty diversity.

"It's not just one issue," Dube said. "If you look at faculty, you have
one black faculty member in natural science. You have many black
students who are pre-med, so when they look to find role models,
they just don't see the opportunity."

Both Dube and Sabrina Harvey, spokeswoman for the Latino
Coalition, said they would like to see a joint student and faculty
effort in increasing the African-American and Latino numbers.

"I think the University should allocate more funds for active
recruitment so they can go out and contact those schools that have
a wider range of applicants," Harvey said. "And I think students
need to be more active in terms of hosting more minority students
and taking our own initiatives when they visit."

Ray Serrano, a Latino sophomore at Brown University -- whose
incoming freshmen class is 8 percent Latino students -- sees the
issue of diversifying a university as an admissions one.

He said he feels that admissions offices should increase the
acceptance limits for minority students -- many schools cap the
number of minority students they accept -- before they increase
recruitment to prevent only rejecting more minority students.

Serrano cites the quality of the current Latino students as more
important than simply increasing the quantity, and would only want
the numbers increased if it meant maintaining that same level of
quality in the community.

"The Latinos we have now are all very active in the Latino
organizations," Serrano said. "The actual numbers are pretty
hollow. We don't want to recruit more Latinos just for the sake of
them being Latino. We don't need more people just checking the
box."

At Penn, obtaining a quality group of individuals remains central to
the admissions process.

"When we look at minority recruitment, we look at it as a
continuing job which is never complete," Provost Robert Barchi
said. "We're not looking to meet a particular quota. We're looking
for the best qualified minority students that we can interest in
matriculating to the University of Pennsylvania."

Jenny Yan, a Wharton junior and vice chairwoman of the Asian
Pacific Student Coalition, believes that it is the strong student
community at Penn that continually brings in high percentages of
Asian-American students.

"Being presented with these percentages, there is still a great
need for more resources to accommodate the numbers," Yan
said.

Among the needs in the Asian community, she noted
strengthening the Asian-American Studies Program, South Asian
Regional Studies Department and the Penn Asian-American
Community House.



Canh Oxelson, the new director of the Penn minority recruitment
program, spent this past weekend attending the U.S. Hispanic
leadership conference in Chicago, meeting with students and
counselors from the Midwest region.

Oxelson believes a good deal of the problem can be attributed to
Penn's lack of name recognition in other regions of the U.S.

"There are plenty of parts of the country where there isn't as much
name recognition," Oxelson said. "If you were going to ask kids on
the West Coast to name the Ivy League schools, they would start
with Harvard, Princeton and Yale, but even on the East Coast I
think some students may have trouble."

In response to these concerns, the admissions office is making
it a task for regional recruiting directors to be responsible for
developing strategies that reach talented students within their
designated recruiting areas.

Despite an ongoing University project, dubbed the diversity fund,
which was established four years ago to help foster the
recruitment and retention of faculty and students from
under-represented minority groups, the statistics for the Class of
2005 have yet to reflect major changes.

Barchi has said that thus far, the diversity fund has succeeded in
creating a supportive atmosphere for minority students on campus
that ensures that once here, those students will choose to
stay.

"The diversity fund and a number of the initiatives that the
president has supported on campus have created an environment
here where minority students come to visit and see a campus
environment that appears and is in fact supportive," Barchi
said.

Harvey sees good things for the future of the Latino statistics. She
is certain that the past few years have brought together a much
stronger Latino community which will likely attract more
prospective Latino freshmen in future classes.