"It's a similar situation at graduate schools everywhere--it's pretty much a nationwide trend," McCavana says.

He says he thinks that the number of applications from minority students has gone down in recent years because the economy is so strong.

"Sometimes graduate school is a way station for students--somewhere to go to when they don't have a job," he says. "The job market is so good, people are thinking twice about graduate school."

But as fewer U.S. students apply to graduate school, the number of international students enrolling at GSAS is far greater than the number of U.S. targeted minorites.

In the fall of 1998, 393 international students enrolled in GSAS, compared to 213 blacks and Hispanics.

"This may simply reflect the belief around the world, the confidence, in the value of a U.S. Ph.D.," Berg says.

McCavana says his office is seeing an increase in applications from the People's Republic of China.