The pitfalls of Yale's quest for minority students

As the Yale Office of Admissions prepares for the onslaught of pre-frosh that Bulldog Days will bring, several admissions officers are especially hard at work trying to recruit admitted minority students. The office claims a strong commitment to bringing minority students into Yale, but convincing them to matriculate is often difficult, and with this year's weak recruiting statistics, the challenge of minority recruitment could be greater than ever. Although the number of minority Yale applications has been largely consistent with years past (resulting in 731 acceptances this year), convincing the best and brightest minority students that Yale is the place for them is never easy.

CAYTE PUSHKAREVA/YH Fola Popoola, JE '02, makes calls to help Yale recruit African-American applicants.

The number of minority students accepted by Yale—36 percent of the 2,032 students who were accepted for the class of 2004—ensures that the University will remain one of the most diverse schools in the Ivy League. The University of Pennsylvania has the largest Ivy minority population at 38 percent, followed by Yale, and Harvard with 34 percent. Princeton is the least diverse school with 27 percent.

Fola Popoola, JE '02, who works as a student recruitment coordinator (SRC) for African-American applicants, said that she did not notice a decrease. She explained, however, that "the number of African-American students accepted is not as important to us as the number who matriculate."

The admissions office takes numerous steps to encourage minority students to attend. This past week, SRCs and volunteers spent hours calling admitted students from minority backgrounds and trying to answer their questions, learn about their concerns, and encourage them to come to Bulldog Days. Yale, like the other Ivies, does not have a special admitted-students program for minority recruits. However, every fall, Yale hosts a special recruiting event at which minority students and their parents attend panels and discussions. And this year, for the first time, some of the SRCs spent their spring breaks visiting schools with high minority populations in cities such as Kansas City and Los Angeles. In order to accommodate those students who otherwise would not be able to afford coming to Bulldog Days, the admissions office offers to pay for the airfare of about 10 minority students, sometimes splitting the costs with other schools to which the students have been admitted. Sometimes, the personal touch can be decisive. "A personal call is usually appreciated and can be very persuasive," Michelle Hung, a Student Services Officer, said.

Admissions officers and SRCs claim that making the extra effort to bring in students of color is essential to shaping the final number of minorities who matriculate. Laura Manjarrez, TC '00, an SRC who works with Mexican-Americans, said, "So few [minorities] get in...and they have a lot of misconceptions about what Yale is about. A lot of them are too intimidated to come." Breann Swann, ES '01, who recruits mainly Puerto Rican, Latino, and Native American students, added, "gifted students of color are highly coveted." Manjarrez explained that minority students face unique challenges—they are more likely to feel unable to pay for Yale or find a supportive ethnic community here.

CAYTE PUSHKAREVA/YH Michelle Hung (left) and Robert Jackson (right) work to attract minority students.

Indeed, minority recruits are often biased toward other schools that are closer to home or have a more recognizable name. "Many of the Mexican-American students we get are from California and Texas, and they lean toward Stanford, because it is closer to home, or to Harvard, because they know the name better," Manjarrez said. Some students do not even consider Yale as an option because "they feel that the academics will be too much or that there won't be a community here for them." She remembers one recruit who had only applied to schools in her home state of Arizona, never having considered applying to Yale. After receiving a call from the Mexican-American dean, she decided to apply to Yale and later matriculated.

Despite the successes of the Office of Admissions, Ramey Ko, SM '02, who serves as the political chair of the Chinese-American Students Association, feels that the Administration is not doing enough. "There seems to have been a significant decline in the number of Asian-American students who apply and matriculate at Yale," he said. Ko felt that the problem lies not in drawing Asian-American applicants, but in the admissions office approach to accepted students. According to Ko, not enough of the recruits know about the resources that are available to Asian-American students. Furthermore, he believes that Yale needs to follow Stanford's model of keeping statistics of individual groups within the Asian-American community, instead of "lumping everybody" under the general title of Asian-American. In that way, he said, "We can see which groups are experiencing problems or need extra help."

Christopher Pan, the acting director of the Asian-American Cultural Center, acknowledged the significance of minority students even as he lumped them together; "It is so important to have a culturally diverse community at Yale, he said. "It's so important to get the best minority students."

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