Members of the Brown Community,

We were delighted to welcome 3,289 new students to Brown this week for the start of the academic year, including 1,725 new, incoming first-year undergraduates who began studies in the Class of 2028. We write today to share information about the composition of the undergraduate class because the 2023-24 admissions cycle marked the first since the Supreme Court decision to prohibit consideration of race in admissions decisions. We recognize there is broad interest for many students, faculty and staff across the Brown community in learning the impacts of the new law.

Since the June 2023 ruling, our focus has been on complying with the law while remaining firmly committed to advancing the diversity that is central to achieving the highest standards of academic excellence and preparing students to grow and lead in a complex world. Even with measures in place to ensure a diverse, talented applicant pool and enrolled class, we recognized that declines in the number of students of color at Brown and other selective universities were anticipated nationally based on the experiences of schools in states that eliminated the consideration of race in admissions in previous years.

In that context, we’re pleased to welcome an academically excellent class of students and one that remains diverse, although to a lesser degree than previously. Among Brown’s new first-year students, 18% come from groups historically underrepresented in higher education, a decline from 27% in 2023. The rate of students opting not to report race increased significantly, with Brown seeing a near doubling of the number of new undergraduates who did not report their race. Beyond race and ethnicity, our incoming class is diverse in many other ways: 14% are first-generation college students, 45% will receive need-based financial aid, and 14% are international citizens. 

While expanding race-neutral strategies to encourage outstanding and increasingly diverse incoming classes will remain our priority moving forward, we believe our commitment to implementing lawful measures to ensure a diverse, talented applicant pool and enrolled class was essential in avoiding a more precipitous decrease in racial and socioeconomic diversity.

A detailed profile of the first-year class, including disaggregated data on racial diversity, is available on Brown’s news website, along with a snapshot of our incoming graduate and medical school classes. Below we detail our efforts to encourage diversity among applicants and matriculants, and note the approach we’ll take to implement additional strategies in the admissions cycles to come. 

Commitment to Sustaining Excellence and Diversity

For the 2023-24 cycle, Brown’s admissions team engaged with a wide variety of stakeholders to encourage a diverse pool of applicants and to support admitted students in determining whether Brown was the best fit for them. The University worked with affinity groups — including, among others, the Inman Page Black Alumni Council, the Brown University Latino Alumni Council, the Asian / Asian American Alumni Alliance, and the Native American Brown Alumni group — to call upon the expertise of Brown’s alumni network.

We continued fruitful partnerships with organizations like QuestBridge, the TEAK Fellowship and the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, all of which support talented students from low-income families in pursuing degrees, and Service to School, which prepares U.S. military veterans to apply to colleges and graduate schools. We expanded the number of community-based organizations visited by admissions staff, with a focus on those that serve students from groups underrepresented in higher education, and partnered with other institutions, including historically Black colleges and universities and one of the U.S. military academies, for recruitment travel across the country. 

For the application process, we added four short-answer questions and replaced a prior essay prompt with one that asked applicants to reflect on how an aspect of their growing up inspired or challenged them, and what unique contributions that experience would enable them to make at Brown. Those changes came in an effort to learn more, directly from applicants, about their experiences and what they would contribute to Brown. While some applicants focused on experiences related to their identity, others wrote about a range of topics— everything from the impacts of climate change and global conflict on their lives, to personal experiences and work in their own communities. Ultimately, our goal was to provide applicants ample opportunity to detail their talents, skills, experiences and ideas as they sought a college education that best fits them.

After making offers of admission, our admissions team ran a robust matriculation campaign to increase yield among underrepresented populations, which is allowed by law. This included targeted, special efforts for students from low-income families, first-generation college students, military veterans, and students from rural and small-town communities. And many of these efforts were successful. For example, we increased the number of prospective students from rural and small-town communities who visited campus through a fly-in program we launched in recent years — one element of Brown’s work with a new nationwide consortium of universities called the Small Town and Rural Students College Network in which Brown is a founding member. 

Amid all these efforts, staff involved in admissions decisions also completed extensive training on how to comply with the law while balancing Brown’s commitment to diversity. Among other outcomes, the Office of College Admission established rigorous protocols for masking information about race submitted by applicants. However, another significant factor affecting admissions this year, in addition to the court’s decision, was the national challenge with the federal rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The FAFSA is intended to simplify the federal financial aid application process, but its rollout was delayed, and many applicants encountered errors that prevented the required form’s timely submission. While Brown requires the more detailed CSS Profile, as well as the FAFSA, and was able to make estimated financial aid offers on its typical timeline, the FAFSA challenges may have dissuaded some prospective students — and particularly those with high financial need — from applying for admission.

Brown to Further Expand Strategies for Future Recruitment

In this new admissions landscape, the University built upon its long-time focus on attracting and enrolling students who not only excel in the classroom, but also demonstrate inspiration, courage, creativity and leadership. This work will continue. Moving forward, Brown’s admissions team will expand on previous measures and implement additional race-neutral strategies to encourage outstanding, diverse classes of first-year undergraduates.

For example, beginning with the Class of 2029, we have reinstated the requirement that applicants submit standardized tests scores, while increasing outreach to ensure applicants know that scores are interpreted in the context of a student’s overall record, background and opportunities. An analysis of the University’s COVID-era test-optional approach suggested that some students from less-advantaged backgrounds chose not to submit scores when doing so could have increased their chance of admission. Strong testing, interpreted in the context of a student’s background, may demonstrate the ability to succeed at Brown — a point we are emphasizing to students and school counselors.

In addition, the Office of College Admission continually evaluates the success of its outreach efforts to learn which are the most effective, and we will explore ways to build on initiatives that helped promote diversity among applicants and incoming students. A continued focus on partnerships with college pathways programs is being supported with the addition of new staff positions. This includes programs at Brown, including the new Brown Collegiate Scholars Program, as well as efforts with community-based organizations. 

In Summary

Brown’s commitment to a diverse campus community in every sense remains unchanged. We have been consistent in asserting that maintaining and advancing diversity is central to achieving the highest standards of academic excellence and preparing our students to grow and lead in a complex world. Diversity confers unmatched educational benefits. When our student body is both exceptionally talented and representative of a broad array of experiences and perspectives, the Brown educational experience is enriched for all students, and we can make an even greater impact through our scholarship. Brown pursued numerous measures to build a diverse applicant pool, and we are committed to building on these efforts in the coming years.

Sincerely,

Francis J. Doyle III, Provost
Logan Powell, Associate Provost for Enrollment and Dean of Undergraduate Admission