African American First-Year Students at the Nation’s Leading Research Universities

 

 

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education

 

Once more, this year The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education has completed its survey of admissions offices at the nation’s highest-ranked research universities. For the 19th consecutive year, we have calculated and compared the percentages of African-American students in this fall’s entering freshman classes. As in the past, our survey publishes information on the total number of African-American applicants at the various institutions, their acceptance rates, enrollment numbers, and yield rates (the percentage of students who eventually enroll in the colleges at which they were accepted).

 

Four years ago Columbia University headed the JBHE rankings for the first time. Now, for the fifth year in a row, Columbia has the highest percentage of Black freshman students among the 30 highest-ranking universities in the nation. There are 174 Black freshmen at Columbia this fall. They make up 12.5 percent of the incoming class.

 

In 2010, there were 202 Black first-year students at Columbia. They made up 14.5 percent of the incoming students. This was the highest percentage of Black students in the entering class at a leading research university in the history of the JBHE survey. Only seven years ago in 2004, Blacks made up only 6.8 percent of the entering students.

 

Duke University finished second in this year’s ranking, up from fourth place a year ago. There are 192 Black freshmen at Duke this fall. They make up 11.1 percent of the entering class.

 

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has led our survey six times. Last year the university dropped to fifth place. In 2011, there are 432 Black freshmen at Chapel Hill making up 10.7 percent of the first-year class. This places the university in third place.

 

In a tie for third with UNC is Stanford University. The 184 Black first-year students make up 10.7 percent of the entering class. Stanford ranked third a year ago with an entering class that was 11.1 percent Black.

 

All of the other top research universities in our survey have entering classes that are less than 10 percent Black.