Diversity

Rankings

For many educators, students, and myself, a diverse campus is a crucial part of the learning environment. I put together this ranking using four proxies for diversity. The full methodology is at the bottom.

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2. Stanford University
3. University of California, Los Angeles
4. Amherst College
5. University of the Pacific
6. Columbia University
7. University of Southern California
8. Yale University
9. Rice University
10. University of California, Berkeley
11. University of California, Davis
12. Santa Clara University
13. San Diego St. University
14. University of Chicago
15. University of California, Santa Cruz
16. Emory University
17. Bryn Mawr College
18. Swarthmore College
19. California Institute of Technology
20. Carnegie Mellon University
21. Wellesley College
22. New York University
23. Mount Holyoke College
24. Pomona College
25. Pitzer College
26. Brown University
27. University of California, Santa Barbara
28. Princeton University
29. Smith College
30. University of Texas, Austin
31. Harvard University
32. Johns Hopkins University
33. Agnes Scott College
34. Syracuse University
35. Cornell University
36. University of Pennsylvania
37. University of California, San Diego
38. Duke University
39. Northeastern University
40. Dartmouth University
41. Boston University
42. Pepperdine University
43. Brandeis University
44. Claremont McKenna College
45. Rutgers University
46. University of Washington, Seattle
47. George Washington University
48. Georgetown University
49. Occidental College
50. Northwestern University
51. University of Maryland, College Park
52. Loyola Marymount University
53. Wesleyan University
54. Williams College
55. University of Florida, Gainesville
56. University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign
57. Fordham University
58. College of William and Mary
59. American University
60. Tufts University
61. Grinnell College
62. Washington University in St. Louis
63. Lewis and Clark College
64. Scripps College
65. Earlham College
66. Austin College
67. Case Western Reserve University
68. Willamette University
69. Bard College
70. University of Virginia
71. Harvey Mudd College
72. Reed College
73. Boston College
74. Trinity University
75. Barnard College
76. Georgia Institute of Technology
77. Vanderbilt University
78. University of Rochester
79. Trinity College
80. Sarah Lawrence College
81. Arizona St. University
82. Vassar College
83. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
84. Colby College
85. University of Arizona, Tucson
86. College of New Jersey
87. Macalester College
88. Bowdoin College
89. Haverford College
90. University of Richmond
91. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
92. Middlebury College
93. Carleton College
94. Lafayette College
95. Kalamazoo College
96. Worcester Polytechnic Institute
97. Florida St. University
98. Berea College
99. College of the Holy Cross
100. Hamilton College

Methodology:

28% of the ranking comes from the size of the largest ethnic group (more points come from a smaller largest group)

28% comes from the size of the third largest ethnic group (more points come from a larger group)

28% comes from the size of the fourth largest ethnic group (more points comes from a larger group)

16% comes from the size of the international student body (more points from a larger group)

The logic here is that a perfectly diverse school would have equal percentages of students from all backgrounds; there would be no majorities or minorities. The size of the largest ethnic group is important, because the smaller the largest group, the more other people there are. I skipped the size of the second group, because if a school has 50% of one group and 45% of another group, I would not call that diverse. What IS deeply indicative of diversity are the sizes of the third and fourth most represented groups, and to a lesser extent, the size of the international student body. I considered weighting all of these categories equally, but too often the international group is a buffer for a university to gain students who do not require financial aid. It’s easy for a school to recruit international students for monetary reasons, and while that’s certainly not always the case, and an international presence on campus is wonderful, that small presence does indicate less of an administrative effort to make an inclusive, diverse environment. Note however, that 16% still is a strong piece of the ranking.

There are many many flaws in this ranking – it’s a ranking.

One huge flaw is that ethnic diversity should hardly be considered holistic diversity, and this ranking doesn’t touch things like socioeconomic, religious, political, or any other type of diversity – all of which are important. Likewise, culture is hugely defined by region, and this ranking does not incorporate where schools’ student bodies are from.

Another obvious flaw is that, since (most) colleges draw the vast majority of their students from their local region, the diversity of the region is going to be reflected in the diversity of the school. For instance, if Minnesota’s St. Olaf College had 6% of its student body from a Hispanic background, and California’s Westmont College had 10 % of its student body from a Hispanic background, St. Olaf is doing a much better job of recruiting diversity (Westmont’s percentage is significantly below that of the state of California, and St. Olaf’s is above that of the state of Minnesota). California schools disproportionately score well in this ranking for that reason, as California’s high numbers of multiple minority groups (it’s the third and fourth groups that make the difference) increase the odds of a school scoring highly on my diversity scale. Also, data on demographics is rightly limited. Many schools have as much as 25% of the student body not responding to survey requests. I actually am not as worried about this, but again, that’s due to my bias. The students that choose to not respond are overwhelmingly those who challenge a survey on race or otherwise oppose such social constructions. In other words, students who don’t respond to these tend to be those who themselves promote diversity and equality. Yes, there are MANY assumptions and biases in there, but this is a ranking, and like all rankings, it includes biases. I’m just trying to be transparent about my own.