The 25 Most Diverse Schools

Internationally known by three simple letters, the Cambridge-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology gains a host of distinctions from NEWSWEEK aside from diversity, including fifth most desirable school in the nation and third most desirable urban school.

It's no surprise that MIT is also seventh for brainiacs (of the only 12 percent of applicants accepted, they averaged a 34 on the ACT and 1560 on the SAT and the school boasts 11 Nobel Prize-winning graduates over the last decade or so) and No. 14 for future power brokers (alumn include four members of the House, four Fortune 100 CEOs and six billionaires). What may be surprising is that NEWSWEEK also places the school at No. 15 for athletes (22 percent of students participate at the varsity level and 53 intramural sports are played).  

MIT is packed with a diverse student body (No. 10 on the list), which is 37 percent white, 25 percent Asian, 8 percent black and 12 percent Hispanic. Though its nearly $38,000 tuition isn't cheap, and even grew close to 4 percent for the most recent academic year, more than 60 percent of MIT students received financial aid. The school has just over 4,000 undergraduates and a student-to-faculty ratio of 8:1.

To rank colleges and universities by diversity, we took a broad view of related issues, including ethnicity, geographic origin, economic status, gender, and sexual orientation. Read more about our methodology here.