terrapinsanity.com

Since the recent IRPA “freeze” (the point when the campus planning office officially does a nose count for the year and reports out all corresponding numerical profiles) administrators have tracked the usual ripple through our community. What major is up? Who’s down? Where’s raw material to plump up that college strategic plan? And so it was that the Diamondback just noticed what color are those noses being counted, at least in the entering class of freshmen. They report that the number of black students arriving this fall is smaller than that of last year.

The article expresses concern, but to its credit, the Administration avoided public hand-wringing. Its spokesman in the article, Rob Waters, is one of leadership’s true assets, and he handled questions professionally. So what is the rest of the story?

Admissions has been under a directive to ‘right size’ each entering class in recent years, but for all the incompetence we regularly point out in that office, there is no question that this was a tough year to forecast yield rates. The tanked economy clouded any guess by the usual measures as to who would confirm here if accepted, and who would not. The Director of Admissions made her guesses, rolled the dice … and lost. This year’s yield was up a couple hundred students overall. Again. (If you listened carefully last month then that giant splat you heard in the background was the sound of Res Life staff gouging out their eyeballs in frustration as they worked to place everyone in some accommodation at least as big as a broom closet. No Christmas cards for Admissions from Res Life this year.)

So to understand the numbers you just saw reported in the Diamondback, you really need to look at rate of admit decisions, not just yields. The freeze only reports the latter – the profile of students who showed up. In point of fact, Admissions guessed that the economy would result in a higher ‘turn down’ rate than usual (more than the usual number of students would get an offer from us but decline), so they boosted the admit rate trying to hit a yield rate (students who once admitted will confirm with us and show up) that gives the target of 4,000 new freshman. (Got all that?)

Admissions thus invited a larger number of students, and moreover, did so with its same formulaic strategy for achieving “diversity” (i.e., they give offers based on the color of the noses being counted…) And here is what it came down to: The confirm rate of white and Asian students ended up being higher than expected (about the same as in the past, if not a little bit higher), and the confirm rate for black (and to some extent Hispanic) applicants was lower than expected. More analysis is needed to find where the qualified black admits when if not here, but that’s how we end up with more students overall and fewer of them black.

In general, places like College Park will continue to struggle with the ‘diversity’ question, for two fundamental reasons. First, while Maryland high schools produce terrifically qualified students of color, attracting them to this campus remains difficult because they are recruited heavily by far bigger-name schools. Said cynically, why would a local student want to go down the road to College Park when he or she can get a free ride at a Harvard or Stanford in return for validating the diversity chit at one of those campuses? College Park will always have the awkward task of achieving a representative student population but without the freedom to draw on a representative pool of applicants.

Second, and perhaps more fundamentally, is mindset. The first on-line comment in response to the Diamondback article says “This is definitely troubling news. Hopefully it was only a one time thing, because racial diversity is what makes Maryland great.” UM’s diversity is indeed a key component to our success. What a pity, then, that some people still measure diversity by the color of a person’s skin. The mindset that we can only achieve a rich melting pot of ideas by using race to presume someone’s intellect, experiences, skills or perspectives is a bigotry we must get past.

The public presentation of data to which the Diamondback article responses is at the IRPA site under the Profiles section. Administrators who log in have far greater drill-down capability on those numbers.