BU Admissions accepted a higher percentage of Asian, Hispanic and black students for the 2012-13 academic year than it has in previous years.

Five percent of accepted students were black, 10 percent were Hispanic and 20 percent were Asian, said BU spokesman Colin Riley. International students comprised about 11 percent of the admitted students.

Sociology professor John Stone said diversity is important on a college campus because it reflects an “increasingly global society.”

“How can GM sell cars to China or Apple sell iPads to India if we do not know what the growing middle classes in those countries value?” he said in an email interview. “What better way to do this than to have students from other countries studying together with American students at BU?”

Stone said domestic diversity was a separate issue, but one that is “equally important.”

Riley said diversity is always taken into account in admissions in a holistic way alongside other factors.

“They review an application in its entirety and look at the individual’s achievements, both academic and non-academic, in the context of the opportunities available to each applicant, as well as the challenges they’ve faced,” Riley said in an email interview.

Yxarittzza Garza, a Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences sophomore, said as a small town Texas native, she was surprised by how diverse BU is.

“I feel like BU does a good job about diversity because when I was accepted here, they had a multicultural community weekend where they sat down different multicultural students,” Garza said. “We came together as a group and talked about diversity, so I feel like they do incorporate it here.”

Allyson Galle, a College of Arts and Sciences senior, said BU has some degree of diversity compared to other colleges and universities.

“They’re doing well,” Galle said. “However, there are a lot of places on campus where you are going to see people not engaging in diversity.”

Galle said sometimes students tend to associate with those of similar backgrounds.

“You are going to find groups that are pretty much people from one region, one school year or one activity,” she said.

Sophia Aronne, a College of Communication junior, said although BU is diverse, more could be done.

“What I would wish, though, is for some of these communities to come together more,” Aronne said. “I feel that some groups on campus can sort of branch off and hang out with each other, instead of going across each group’s boundaries.”

CAS freshman Naziyya Haque said levels of diversity differ depending on a student’s major.

“I’m mostly taking science classes, and it feels more often than not that it’s largely Asian,” Haque said. “The only thing I’ve noticed from personal experience is that I don’t think there’s a lack of diversity per se, compared to other schools.”