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[quote=Anonymous]I went to Yale.  There were lots of African-Americans, probably more than the 15% that they represent in the general population.  But, you're right, they didn't study statistics.  They also weren't in the English department with me.  In terms of majors, they were concentrated in the hard sciences and a few other departments like economics and engineering.  It seemed that most AA students were much more focused on getting into a high-paying professional field than were white students, probably because many more came to Yale as first or second generation college students.  Asian students often wanted to go straight to graduate school and gravitated to fields that led to that path, probably because they had been taught to value these fields highly.  The humanities, classics, and other fields that led to more open-ended paths after Yale and had less of a clear route to a certain profession tended to be much more white.  Whites from less privileged backgrounds tended to choose majors similar to those chosen by the AA students.  It made sense to me at the time.  Students with a big safety net could afford to take a chance and be a classics major at Yale because their post-college path was eased by help from parents.  Students with a smaller or no safety net tended to take a less risky, more certain route. [/quote]

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