Graduation Rates

From Ephblog:

I suspect that this is not so much as race issue as an academic rating issue. I bet that US students with AR 1 have a 98% graduation rate while US students with AR 4 or below are at 80% or worse. If so, shouldn’t Williams be honest about that discrepancy? Would those students be better off at a different, less competitive school?

I suspect otherwise. But, I also doubt that its much of a "race" issue so much as it is a cultural/social issue. If coming to Williamstown and the northern Berkshires is a greater transition for you, if you aren't used to being around so many people with different backgrounds from yours, or if you have a hard time dealing with people who haven't been through the same stuff that you've seen in your life, then you won't be as happy here.

If you aren't happy, you're less likely to do your work. I'd argue that a lack of qualifications isn't so much present as a nuanced and occasional inability to connect with Williams, and that there are plenty of confounding variables that make this seem to be about race, when it's in fact about other aspects of one's background that happen to be correlated with race.