Minority acceptance rate up 11 percent over last year

The University's Admissions Office admitted 11 percent more minority students for the class of 1996 than last year, for a total of 1756. This increase follows an Admissions Office decision to admit 245 more students than usual to account for the great increase in applications, but Admissions Dean Willis Stetson said yesterday the increase in the number of minority acceptants was not in direct response to the extra places in the accepted pool. "Since the size and quality of the minority pool increased significantly this year, we were able to admit a greater percentage," he said. The most significant increases in the acceptance rate at the University were in the minority population. "We are anxious to enroll a larger class of underrepresented minorities," he said. "Because of the larger pool to choose from, we could be more responsive." Stetson said this year's minority acceptance rate is part of a trend to compose an increasing percentage of minority students in the freshman class. Thirty-six percent of this year's freshman class are minority students, as opposed to 34.3 percent in last year's freshman class, 26 percent in '87 and 15 percent in '79. Stetson said the University accepts one of the largest percentages of minority students in the Ivy League. He said the number of accepted black students increased 20 percent this year to 367, and the number of Hispanics accepted increased 16 percent to 222. "Penn, Harvard and Cornell have the greatest number of minority students," he said last night. Asians comprise 22 percent of the University's student body, according to Stetson. This year, 1123 Asians were accepted, which is a seven percent increase over last year. The Admissions Office has an active program to convince accepted students to matriculate, and Stetson said this is true for minority recruitment as well. Programs such as the Minority Scholars Weekend in March and the United Minorities Council's letter-sending program to those minorities accepted have been instituted to achieve these means. "I have a sense that our successes [can partly be attributed to] the Minority Scholars Weekend since it was so early and the students were not even admitted by that time," Director of Minority Recruitment Clarence Grant said. Grant said he does not feel like he is working alone to recruit minority students, particularly because the office only accepts those who are qualified to do the work. "It is not hard to represent the minority students [in the admissions process] because I am not the only one committed to recruiting minorities," he said. "We all want what is best for the students." Stetson stressed the difficulties in recruiting minority students because of competition between many schools. "Most minority students who are admitted have many options and are very much a part of other schools' recruiting programs," he said. "We try to get minority students -- and in fact all accepted students -- to campus to tilt them towards Penn."

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