Northwestern University Makes Strides in Student Diversity

Northwestern University reports that its entering class this fall will have the best academic qualifications of any class in history in terms of average SAT scores and class rankings. The university also reports that the entering class will be more racially and socioeconomically diverse than in past years. Blacks will make up 5.5 percent of the incoming class, compared to 3.7 percent a year ago. This year, 9.6 percent of entering students qualify for federal Pell Grants for low-income students. In 2008, 5.9 percent of entering students received Pell Grants.

Even with this improvement, it is likely that Northwestern will rank in the bottom half of the 30 highest academically ranked research universities in terms of black and low-income students.