The number of black students in this year's freshman class at Penn has seen a 23 percent increase from the number in the class of 2006, according to the Office of Admissions.
In 2002, 144 black students enrolled at Penn -- constituting 5.9 percent of the freshman class -- while this year, 177 enrolled, bringing the percentage up to 7.3.
The jump is not due to a higher acceptance rate for black students -- admissions offers to black students from 2002 to 2003 even declined slightly, according to The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education -- but rather to an increase in the number of accepted black students who decided to enroll.
Nearly 51 percent of black students admitted to Penn accepted admission, topping last year's yield rate of 40.8 percent.
Nevertheless, the yield rate for black students remains lower than the overall yield rate for the Class of 2007. According to admissions statistics, this year's overall yield was 63 percent, slightly higher than last year's yield of 62 percent.
Whether the increase in black enrollment is due to a higher black student yield or higher overall yield, College junior Chevon Walker -- a member of the Political Action and Research Committee of UMOJA and the Black Student League -- said that she is pleased with the new numbers.
"It seems as though more black students feel that they can find a place for themselves here at Penn, which is great," Walker wrote in an e-mail. "The recent increase in the number of blacks admitted is a great step in the right direction for Penn admissions."
Last year, after Penn was ranked seventh out of the eight Ivy League schools in black enrollment, admissions officers said they would focus on minority recruitment.
Karlene Burrell-McRae, the director of Makuu -- Penn's black student cultural center, which works with the Admissions Office on black student retention -- voiced her satisfaction with the increase in black enrollment.
"I certainly think it's exciting that there are more black students who are choosing to come to Penn," she said.
However, United Minorities Council President and College senior Darcy Richie was "skeptical" about the new statistics.
"It was a huge jump, and I know that statistics are made from so many different things," she said, adding that the increase in black enrollment could be due to other factors besides recruiting.
College junior and Black Student League Vice President Cassi Pittman also had mixed feelings about the findings.
"It's always nice to see eager, young, vibrant, black students on campus, but in consideration of the long history, it's difficult to [feel] positive until you can see sustained improvement," she said.
But despite differing reactions to the statistics, staff members and students alike noted the importance of campus diversity, a quality that the Supreme Court decided this summer was a "compelling interest" in terms of higher education admissions policies, when it ruled in favor of the use of affirmative action in higher education.
"We all learn from each other, and adding more types of people enhances everybody's education," Richie said.
Diversity "adds to the richness of who we learn from and what we learn from them," Burrell-McRae added.
Walker agreed.
"We don't live in a bubble, and we all need to make every effort to explore other cultures and share ours as well," Walker wrote. "Any institution that does not support and celebrate diversity is doing its students a great disservice."
Despite the recent increase, though, some student leaders still feel that blacks remain an underrepresented minority at Penn.
"I don't think blacks are extremely visible on campus," Richie said. "There aren't enough of us to fill committees or major organizations. Most black students are overextended -- we're trying to spread ourselves too thin."
Pittman added that Penn's percentage of black students is still unrealistic. "The number of black students at Penn is not reflective of the number of black people in society," she said.
However, despite the others' concerns, Walker pointed out that the increase in black students may encourage more blacks to apply.
The findings "will probably strike some interest in high school upperclassmen when they are conducting their college searches," she wrote. "I certainly hope that it does."
According to Richie, the black student community at Penn still has work to do.
"I'm not going to jump to say everything is fine, because we're not done yet."
