Among the Leading Liberal Arts Colleges, Amherst Has the Highest Percentage of Black Freshmen: Amherst Leads JBHE Survey for Fourth Straight Year

For 17 years JBHE has collected black student admissions data on the highest-ranked liberal arts colleges. Over this long period there have been seven years when Amherst College in western Massachusetts reported the highest percentage of black freshmen. On five occasions Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, had enrolled the highest percentage of black first-year students.

This year Amherst leads the rankings for the fourth consecutive year. This fall there are 75 black freshmen at Amherst College. They make up a whopping 14.6 percent of the first-year class. This is the highest percentage of black freshmen at a high-ranking liberal arts college in the 17-year history of the JBHE survey. The number of black freshmen at Amherst is up 53 percent from a year ago.

Mount Holyoke College, Swarthmore College, and Williams College all have freshman classes that are at least 11 percent black. Vassar, Oberlin, Pomona, and Wesleyan all have first-year classes that are at least 9 percent black.

For the complete results of the annual survey of black freshmen at the nation’s leading liberal arts colleges, click here.

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