The College placed first in four of the 13 different quantitative measures of racial integration used by The Journal: percentage of the student body that identifies itself as black, percentage of first-year students who identify themselves as black, six-year gain in black freshman enrollments and black student graduation rate.
In addition, the College's Class of 2002 had the highest black student graduation rate of any college or university in the nation.
"There are two main reasons to rank racial diversity-to encourage competition among the colleges and to inform college-bound black kids which schools are doing the best job," said Theodore Cross '46, a life trustee of the College, who is also the Editor and Publisher of The Journal. "[These rankings] are distributed to high school counselors and various institutions that are interested in this issue-in getting more blacks into college."
"We are very interested in having an integrated, diverse class," said President Tom Gerety. "But, I think as any teacher or administrator with a strong sense of responsibility, all of us want everyone who comes to succeed."
Associate Dean of Admission Joy St. John is in charge of recruiting minority applicants. She said that one contribution to the College's black student graduation rate is the requirement that high school seniors submit applications to attend one of the school's fall student of color weekends, allowing admissions to prescreen students for ability.
"We've done a good job of not being consumed by the numbers alone-diversity for diversity's sake," said St. John.
St. John said that the open curriculum could be one thing that attracts highly qualified minority students. "They don't really get bogged down in requirements that might be less than motivating," she said.
Gerety also spoke about the College's ability to attract these students. "I think the very qualities of the student body and the faculty are the most important things," he said. "They are coming here, essentially I think, for the place and the human beings who are here ... I think fundamentally people should come not because of any sales pitch, but because it is just the right place for them and because, expensive as it is, we can afford the scholarships."
The College also ranked near the top in several other categories. The only concern that the Journal had was that the percentage of blacks on the College faculty has declined over the last few years. Blacks now make up 5.2 percent of the total faculty. Three years ago, blacks composed 6.9 percent of the College's faculty. "[The decrease in black faculty] may just be a temporary phenomenon, but the College could do a lot better," said Cross. "In the overall picture, however, Amherst does very well."
The Journal gave each of the top 24 liberal arts colleges a score in each of the categories of measured integration of African Americans according to where the institution ranked compared to its peers. Williams College lagged behind the College, placing second on The Journal's scoring chart. Swarthmore, Mt. Holyoke and Smith Colleges received seventh, tenth and twelfth, respectively.
All of The Journal's data is obtained from yearly in-house surveys of the colleges and universities as well as from government sources.
"It's not like the U.S. News [and World Report] ranking where you have to go through an incredible application process," said Director of Media Relations Paul Statt '78. "They did this ranking from publicly available information. It was not a complete surprise, but we didn't have to apply for this honor-they just did it on their own."
"We are proud to be rated that way," said Gerety. "With any rating I think that the degree of precision in the rating is false. To say we are number one in this ... doesn't mean that we are the best in it, just that we are doing pretty well."