MIT Reports Strong Performance in Recruiting Black Students

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology will have 1,040 entering students this coming fall. Blacks will make up about 10 percent of the incoming class. A year ago there were 99 black freshmen at MIT, making up 9.3 percent of the entering class. A decade ago there were 62 black freshmen in the entering class.

MIT’s performance is particularly noteworthy considering students at the university tend to have strong science, engineering, or mathematics backgrounds. Other universities with heavy concentrations in the sciences, such as CalTech, have had far less success in recruiting black students.

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