It’s a nice picture!
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All the L lines have stops less than a block away, and it’s once a week in the afternoon, and that also provides prep for college life. It is more of a perceived burden than an actual burden. Around 2,500 students are nominated every year, and the South Side is always heavily represented.
I volunteer for the DAP I interviews, for Resume coach, and for career coach, and have known a number of cohorts, so I may have a somewhat wider view of the Posse nominees and Posse Scholars, at least from Chicago.
On the other hand, I do only see nominees after they have accepted the nomination, so there is self-selection in the ones that I see.
[aside]
The Virtual Programs are mostly for a newer program which has Posses from more than one region. These Posse come from Charlotte, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Memphis, Newark, Philadelphia, and Phoenix. The groups of 10 come from different cities. There a few from across entire states, like Virginia and Indiana, as well as one from the Twin Cities, which only has one Posse.
[/aside]
The L line only goes to 95th on the south side. That’s a minimum 15 minute drive from where many of the students live (so someone would need to drive them), not to mention a long ride to get in the loop, thru some gritty areas. Some could take the Rock Island train line at 99th, but again, long ride. And like I said, many of these kids work paid jobs on the weekends/after school. Some may have family responsibilities and/or play a sport (there is a high rate of athletic participation at parochial schools).
Access to the L is a bigger problem than the neighborhoods that the L goes through*, but that is indeed a problem. Waiting for the bus on the way back can be a pretty serious safety issue, not to mention the time suck.
*I regularly took the L through some of the worst Chicago neighborhoods, and never worried (so did my kid).
As an aside - parochial schools are private and cannot nominate their students for Posse.
The parochial school I worked at regularly nominated students for Posse scholarships, this school was a Posse partner. Several students from this school have won Posse scholarships.
While I agree that it’s often hard to find out how many QB students a school accepts, I did a little digging and found a few examples of schools that do share that information (albeit not always in an obvious place).
Haverford has disclosed the number of QB students they accept for a few years. You can see the number for the Class of 2030 here: https://www.haverford.edu/admission/class-profile
Williams accepted 14 QB students for the Class of 2030; see the lede of this article in the Williams Record.
Bowdoin accepted 25 QB students for the Class of 2029.
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Washington & Lee has been reporting QB students since I’ve been following their student profiles in recent years. The highest I’ve noted is 10% of the incoming class (which would be 40+ students). The class of 2029 profile below indicates 8% that year, which would be 39-40 QB since they overenrolled and had a larger class.
ETA: W&L is not a Posse school but does award the Johnson merit scholarship recognizing “academic achievement, demonstrated leadership and integrity, and potential to contribute to the intellectual and civic life of the W&L campus and the world at large in years to come” to approximately 44 students in each class. So a roughly similar mission to Posse and interestingly with similar numbers in each class as QB. So similarly “wealthy” schools could offer both merit and low-income financial support if they chose.
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The only kids from private schools in Chicago area that I know who have been nominated for Posse were nominated by Civic organizations or by Posse alumni/Scholars, not by their schools. They may have expanded to register some parochial schools, or there may be a connection between a civic organization and the school. Now I’m curious. I’m probably not going to make it to the DAP interviews this year, but I’ll ask whether the policies have changed
Some colleges also obscure the actual number in other ways, like Yale giving numbers like “1,500 since 2007”, or “500 enrolled”, or Dartmouth writing “93 accepted students were introduced to Dartmouth via QuestBridge”, mixing those who were matched and are expected to enroll and finalists who were accepted RD, and could be enrolling elsewhere (these students can get multiple acceptances).
I will give a shoutout to UPenn, not only for being clear, but also for the number of QB students that they enroll. According to the Daily Pennsylvanian “In total, the University admitted 259 students through QuestBridge last year, with 111 students admitted through the early, binding match program”.
So I’ll step back from my previous statement, since many colleges do announce the number of QB students they accept these days, though this is often obscured or presented in confusing manner.
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sent you a PM. No change, this school has been nominating Posse scholars since at least 2018.
100%
If Posse’s mission is to “empower diverse groups of leaders who transform communities, this country and the world.”
Is that not what the schools espouse they are looking for all around in admissions at highly selective schools anyway?
I was today years old when I learned posse students didn’t have to meet an income threshold… wild to me kids with $ can be in it! That is silly to me, so don’t think this is bad of northwestern..
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That is what they say, that is not what they do. For some reason, the vast majority of these “diverse groups of leaders” seem to be Wealthy and White. A college which actually values diversity does not have legacy admissions, admissions based on country-club sports, or things like “the Deans List”.
Private colleges usually admit students based on what is good for the college, not based on what is good for society, the country, or the world.
“We’re looking for diversity in our leadership” is more of a sound byte than of a policy or a philosophy. The more recent article by Chetty is pretty good in demonstrating how “elite” colleges have been actually doing their best to maintain power and influence in the hands of the groups and families that have been holding that power and influence.
As for “transform”? The leaders that have been anointed by these colleges are mostly deeply embedded in existing power structures and are much more often committed to maintaining them, rather than wanting to transform them.
[aside]
I will repeat for the umpteenth time that it doesn’t bother me that much that colleges admit students for those reasons. I just don’t want to hear that they are admitting for those reasons because they “Value Diversity”, or anything like that.
[/aside]
The point is that they are looking for students from groups that are underrepresented, and not only low income. For example, LBGTQ students are also heavily represented in Posse.
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In the Country? Yes…you are now arguing something different than what NW admissions is doing. The current leaders are often 65+ years old…(and often 80).
IN highly selective colleges? Wealthy disproportionately, yes…. white? depends on school..
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We have agreed Posse kids can be non-poor, so that isn’t part of this question now 2) The economics of these schools means students really have to be disproportionately rich unless we change something very fundamental (I am not against that but a whole separate question).
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re: race and Northwestern…
From Northwestern, 48% of undergrads are white…which is less than US population as a whole. I know next to nothing about Northwestern, but they don’t seem to be failing terribly…US % of population that is Black is 13% per census so they are about representative there…They are a little low on Hispanic/Latino..
.https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/RHI225225
Undergraduate Student Body*
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Asian American or Pacific Islander: 28%
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Black or African American: 13%
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Hispanic or Latinx/e: 16%
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Native or Indigenous: 2%
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White: 48%
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First-generation college students: 15%
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Pell Grant recipients: 22%
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International: 12%
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