Grossman acknowledged that Hispanics were not included but said the omission was intentional, not an oversight.

"We actually made a conscious decision not to include Hispanics because they are both black and white," said Grossman, who is Hispanic.

But Santana said Hispanics could not simply be classified as one race or another.

"It is just insensitive to categorize Latinos as either black or white," said Santana, who is Latino. "That shows an ignorance of who Latinos are as a community. Many consider themselves white; many would consider themselves black; many consider themselves neither."

Veblen, who is white, said it was impractical to try to pick out Hispanics by facebook pictures.

"From a visual perspective we didn't feel that we could get any kind of accurate measurement. So we concluded that it made more sense not to do it at all," said Veblen.

According to figures provided by the admissions office, nine percent of the Class of 1999 is African-American, and about 18 percent is Asian.

Grossman and Veblen's report stated that the class is 9.5 percent African-American, and 21.8 percent Asian.

Despite what they acknowledge are imperfect estimates, the students who compiled the project said their work has some informational value.

"Our goal was to look at the house populations and see how different they are," Grossman said. "You could still tell from the data we did get that there was a significant difference between the houses. We hope the masters will rejoice in this diversity and provide what is needed in each of the houses."

But AAA Co-President Sharon W. Gi '98 said invalid numbers may be worse than no numbers at all.

"I think it is a good thing to have this information out there," she said. "But if you have incorrect figures it might be more harmful.