<p>nyc,
Keep in mind that 3% at some schools might be 10 kids while at another it could be 300.</p>
<p>“I feel sorry for URM’s who feel the need to tell people that they got in without affrimative action. They are too young to remember that before AA, the assumption was simply that no URM could possibly be qualified. After AA, the assumption is the same, but now there is an explanation for their presence. Racism underlies both assumptions.”</p>
<p>And if they did, so what? I never felt sorry for the rich white kid with the Porsche whose great-granddaddy donated a building because he had to apologize for getting in as a result of “affirmative action”. And the reason I never got to feel sorry is because he never felt like he had a need to tell. On the contrary, he walked around like he owned the place! (Pretty much did, too. ;))</p>
<p>I’m calmer now, so this will not be a rant. </p>
<p>Sent! if your daughter goes to any of the private schools you listed, she will be far from the only URM, even in the hard science fields you mention. This is not a knock on Berkeley, I just don’t know enough about it to have an opinion. All of the privates on your list are serious about diversity, have had significant numbers of URM’s for many years, and students there are no longer blazing trails. They are also popular enough that the qualifications of the URM’s who are admitted, and their subsequent performance, leave no room for doubt about their right to be there. So this, as opposed to prestige, may actually be a good reason to focus on the most elite schools. </p>
<p>She will probably stand out as much for being a woman in hard science as for being URM. The combination is truly rare, anywhere. </p>
<p>Years ago I did know an African American woman PhD student in engineering at one of the elite private universities. She was the only one in a large department. On the other hand, she said that she was being treated well. In that department the full professors, all of whom were white men, did not want to be running an all white old boys club. They wanted great students. Their frustration was in getting people to apply. For them it was a trap: there were very few minorities in the department, so people thought they were not welcome, so they did not apply, so there were very few minorities in the department.</p>
<p>Moral: look beyond the numbers to see what is really going on. Your daughter is looking at schools that demand extremely high academic performance to qualify, and there are few URM’s at that level. Do not interpret low representation as prima facie evidence of hostility on the part of the school.</p>
<p>nyc The standard college books, like the Fiske guide, list the ethnic compositions of schools, so this is a place to start to identify those with % black that meet your daughter’s criteria. For the reason above, it may be more important to talk with students at the school, than to look at the numbers. Some places have relatively high (in this world 10% is “high”) proportions of African American students, but little interaction among the races. Others have smaller percentages, but a healthy community atmosphere. </p>
<p>You both might be reassured, or at least informed, by looking at the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. It does reports on, among other things, the environment for blacks at many schools. Its focus tends to be on the most elite places, recently they have done reports on the top 20 (I think) universities and a similar number of LAC’s. So the information is most useful to students who are headed for such places. </p>
<p>I don’t know how either daughter feels about women’s colleges, but Smith has an outstanding reputation on the quality of education, endless opportunities for women, and a superb record of how they handle URM’s. Sent!'s daughter might not find enough depth in hard science there to suit her needs. On the other hand, very few places in the country produce as high a proportion of women graduates who go on to get PhD’s in science. Spelman has a similar reputation among HBCU’s.</p>
<p>By the way, Sent!, if your daughter majors in chemical engineering, hard work and all-nighters will be her life. She seems up for it, you will have to learn to accept it.</p>
<p>Remember that colleges and universities are run by thoughtful, well educated people. They are not perfect, but as has been widely reported, college faculties tend to be far to the left of the American political spectrum. Your daughters will likely encounter less racism on campus, and certainly from the faculty and administration, than almost anywhere else in our society. It is reasonable to think about this question in college searching, but I hope your kids focus more on the same things everyone should look at: small vs large, city vs country, LAC vs university, EC’s that appeal to them.</p>
<p>Last item in this long post. If you have not already, look at Bowen and Bok’s “Shape of the River”. They report that african american students who went to elite colleges in earlier years-still after the trail blazing days- were overall quite content with their experiences, and their subsequent careers.</p>
<p>Appropo African-American students from NYC, you mgiht enjoy the link about Tiffany Schley:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/206424p-178119c.html[/url]”>http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/206424p-178119c.html</a></p>
<p>The numbers (or %) are important TO ME and I am looking for my D. When we were looking a board schs, one sch (enroll 400) which D like had a number of (5-7) African students and only 1 Af-Am student, who was a senior. I wasn’t comfortable with the prospect of D the “only” or the “other” (ie 1 of 2) Af-Am student. Similarly, I wouldn’t have sent her to Dartmouth at the dawn of co-education.</p>
<p>Colorado College, for example - - 2000 students and 2% black - - may be a great choice for some families. But our family has decided that critical mass of black students is important. So Colorado’s 40 (!!) black students – making D 1 of 5 black girls in her “grade” (assuming equal distrib for all 4 years and equal m/f) - - just isn’t good enough, even if all 40 of those students give the school rave reviews on diversity. (I have read Fiske, and Princeton Rev and Peterson’s; that’s why I said you’d be surprised at how many sch don’t make the cut.)</p>
<p>Also, depending upon the college’s location, I think the numbers DO say something about the school’s commitment to diversity: a school is w/i a 3 hrs of NYC, Newark, Camden and Philly that can’t get more than 3% black students, is likely to be inhospitable. Admittedly, hitting the 3% mark may be fore diff in VT (but Middlebury makes the cut).</p>
<p>And, as an component of student body composition, race is as legit a consideration as %in/out-of-state and %fe/male - - both factors families routinely consider (presumably, that’s why all three are listed in the guide books). Who’s to say that city/rural is more valid than warm weather, or athletic offerings or race or religious affiliation?</p>
<p>You might also consider that the trailblazers had far fewer options than our Ds do. Faced w/ the trailblazers’ choice, I might advise D to screw her courage to its sticking place and navigate the hostile waters (maybe not, see comment re: Dartmouth). But, most black college grads were not trailblazers and, no doubt, they too are content with their choices and careers and lives (and, fyi, many of those undergrad trailblazer attended hist black grad and prof schools, which may factor equally into the contentment calculus).</p>
<p>I was no trailblazer, but I the “only” or “other” black student in the honors track of my purportedly intergrated elem and high schs. For college, I selected a school (Smith, when Amherst and Dart were still all-male) in part b/c of my desire to be in the majority. And two of my friends - - one, the only woman in her physics PhD prgm at UPenn, the other, one of a small group of women in her class at G’twn med - - could tell you stories that would make your hair stand on end. Neither regrets attending her respective grad sch, but neither would rec that her D repeat the experience.</p>
<p>I think it is a good idea for a student to identify what he/she is comfortable with socially as well as what their desire is for academic opportunities when choosing a school. I know that the UCs in California and in most of the top schools we looked at diversity was not a problem. Urban colleges on the coast will understandably be more diverse than rural colleges in cowboy states. Good luck.</p>
<p>“And I see the enormous respect and tolerance by most kids for the school’s gay and lesbian club, even though we live in a very polically and religiously conservative area. We’re not in Nirvana yet, and I know that there are still a lot of Cretins out there, but I see changes in these kids today that are truly positive”</p>
<p>Thank you to all for the encouragement and responses.</p>
<p>My very independent daughter teaches me everyday. I should admit that she has no qualms about attending any school. It is my thinking that she would be happier at a school with a “critical mass” and she looks at me and blinks with a questioning look. . .</p>
<p>I remember when.</p>
<p>She does not.</p>
<p>She is too busy reading about current research at undergraduate level that she wants to participate–a determining factor for her college choice. Her humanist mom can’t help her?? Anything about nanotechnology, biophysics, biochem and chemical engineering brings a shine to her eyes, while my eyes glaze over. Her nickname–madscientist, which her family and friends began to call her when she was 4 years.</p>
<p>"'m afraid that this will almost always be the initial assumption that your D will encounter, until she proves otherwise. It is one of the downsides of AA, in my opinion. Everyone assumes that every minority kid at college was “less qualified” and got “the AA boost.” That is certainly not true.
"</p>
<p>No, that assumption is not a result of affirmative action. It’s a result of the racist assumptions that date back to the inception of America.</p>
<p>After all, the racist assumption that black people couldn’t do the work or would somehow cause trouble is why up until 1965, many colleges colleges in this country refused to accept black students no matter how high the black students’ grades and scores were.</p>
<p>Princeton didn’t accept black students until about 1945. Davidson didn’t accept them until 1965. Harvard didn’t accept them until the 1890s.</p>
<p>The late Detroit Mayor Coleman Young was accepted to University of Detroit and then the acceptance was withdrawn – because the university learned he was black. He later became a Tuskegee Airman (a group of flyers notable for having never lost a plane that they were protecting).</p>
<p>What is funny to me is why no white people seem to feel unworthy because they or their ancestors took space at excellent colleges that might have gone to a more deserving black person.</p>
<p>Agreeing that there have been nasty, deplorable racist attitudes for a long time in many places, I thought the first black graduate–not just admittee–at many colleges dates back to the generation immediately after the Civil War. I’m happy to be corrected on my factual recollection of American history, but I thought Harvard (alma mater of W.E.B. DuBois), Minnesota, Iowa State (wasn’t that the alma mater of George Washington Carver?), the United States Military Academy, and many other colleges had black graduates in the 1880s, or even earlier. Of course the correct social policy position, long ignored, is to open doors for qualified applicants irrespective of ethnic origin, but while some schools were laggards in doing that, others have been doing it for a very long time. </p>
<p>I also agree that “affirmative action” is not a convincing reason for a particular applicant to bemoan being rejected at such-and-such selective school. First of all, whatever the applicant’s ethnic group, there is a CHANCE to get in, but never a certainty, at any of the most selective schools. Second of all, there is a plurality of schools, and there are plenty of fine places for every applicant to apply. I appreciated the initial post in this thread and its emphasis on planning carefully to avoid admissions disappointment, which can happen to anyone but which is preventable by applying to a carefully selected list of schools.</p>
<p>Actually the first graduate, as far as we know, was Alexander Twilight at Middlebury in 1823. The third, though, at Bowdoin in 1826, was more important historically. John Brown Russworm became the editor of “Freedman’s Journal”, the first Black newspaper in the U.S. There were lots of African-American grads in the 1840s, I think, from the Chester Institute, founded by Quakers from Philadelphia. First Black woman was Mary Jane Patterson, from Oberlin, in 1862.</p>
<p>“No, that assumption is not a result of affirmative action. It’s a result of the racist assumptions that date back to the inception of America.”</p>
<p>No, it really is the result of Affirmative Action. You may have had a point if this were thirty or more years ago, but in this day and age, the biggest detriment to the URM population on campus is the policy of affirmative action that plants a seed of doubt about their skills and talents in everyone else there.</p>
<p>Info about first black graduates at some US colleges.</p>
<p>"In 1870, Harvard’s first black graduate received his degree. In 1874, Yale’s first got his.</p>
<p>“In 1909, an African-American prospective was told it was “inadvisable” for him to attend Princeton. Years later, a black student the University believed was white was turned away at registration. Not until 1947 <em>three-quarters of a century after Harvard and Yale </em>did Princeton have its first black graduate, John Howard.” <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?p=801985[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?p=801985</a></p>
<p>From the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, Winter, 2002-3.</p>
<p>Trinity College (Conn.) – 1950
Swarthmore: 1947
Smith: 1900
Pomona: 1904</p>
<p>Harvey Mudd: 1966
Haverford: 1951
Davidson: 1968
Claremont McKenna: 1966</p>
<p>Carleton 1949
Bryn Mawr: 1931</p>
<p>Mount Holyoke: 1883, but they didn’t have another one until admitting a black student in 1916, apparently thinking she was white. When they realized their error, they told her she would not be happy at that college. She graduated there Phi Beta Kappa in 1919.</p>
<p>Vassar: 1897 but they didn’t knwo she was black when she was admitted. The first student to graduate from Vassar who openly acknowledged being black graduated in 1940.</p>
<p>Some of the relatively few colleges that accepted blacks early were (as stated by a previous poster) Middlebury, 1823</p>
<p>Amherst, 1826
Bowdoin, 1826
Bates 1874
Oberlin 1844
Wesleyan 1860
Wellesley 1887</p>
<p>Keep in mind that even where black students were allowed to attend mainstream colleges, they typically were treated differently than were white students.</p>
<p>Du Bois was not allowed to live in Harvard’s dorms. My great uncle graduated from Syracuse in the early 1900s, and also was not allowed to sleep in the dorm.</p>
<p>Just in case some are wondering whether black students didn’t attend the colleges because they didn’t apply, here’s info about what occurred at Swarthmore.</p>
<p>As a Quaker college, since Quakers believe in the equality of all people, one might assume that Swarthmore took a more liberal view of black people than did most colleges and Americans then.</p>
<p>"It certainly wasn’t true that no Black student had ever applied to Swarthmore. Walton’s “Swarthmore College: An Informal History” tells the story of a successful applicant around the turn of the century whose acceptance was withdrawn after the college realized his race. </p>
<p>Again, in 1932, an otherwise qualified Negro student applied to Swarthmore. Dean Hunt related, 'The admission of colored students had never been approved by the Board of Managers, and so the Admissions Committee referred the application to the Board. '"</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/98/elizw/Swat.history/Negro.admissions.html[/url]”>http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/98/elizw/Swat.history/Negro.admissions.html</a></p>
<p>I think it’s important to remember as well that a “critical mass” of one’s ethnic or racial group doesn’t just apply to URMs. We’re Jewish, which, while a minority in the general population, isn’t considered a minority in college admissions. We’re looking at schools that have enough Jews at least to have a Jewish community center (preferably a Hillel). I don’t want my dd to be faced with explaining why she doesn’t attend classes on Yom Kippur, or to face anti-Semitism without a support system. And it limits to some extent the geographic area we’re willing to look at - I want her to feel comfortable in the surrounding areas as well as on campus.</p>
<p>Thanks to NorthstarMom for the historical information.</p>
<p>Chevda, I assume you know that Hillel has a web site that lists all the colleges where they are active?</p>
<p>Yes, I do - thanks, though for the info, calmom!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Northstarmom, or anyone else who has an opinion,
Please explain this to me. Why should I or my kids feel unworthy for a historical injustice? Seriously. I never did anything personally that was racist for which I need to atone. Should I apologize for my German ancestry too? </p>
<p>I don’t hold it against anybody that my ancestors were driven from their homeland by Communists or treated badly as Irish and German immigrants. Or that the very way of life was ripped from a Cherokee ancestor. How long do the guilt and reparations need to go on? We certainly should not forget our history. But, it seems to me that holding on to past injustices keeps us from moving forward.</p>
<p>lkf725,
I will explain further. Because of the historical injustices against blacks (and against some other groups), white Americans, particularly white male, nonJewish Americans have some advantages that black people do not have.</p>
<p>For instance, because highly qualified African Americans could not gain access to most of the nation’s colleges until the last 70 or so years, white Americans are more likely to not only benefit from legacy advantages but to also have inside knowledge and connections in terms of such admissions currently that gives them an advantage.</p>
<p>Because African Americans (as well as some other groups) were red lined when it came to housing or were legally allowed only to buy housing in the most run down sections of town (even when the people had the funds to buy in better areas), African American families even now inherit less from their parents and also have less in terms of assets than white families have. After all, the most lucrative asset that most families have is their home, and if that home’s value is artificially low due to racism and discrimination, then this problem will affect future generations.</p>
<p>An example: My dad was a dentist, and I grew up in NY State. Because of restrictive covenants, my family had to buy a house that was located about a block from the town dump. Because of general racism, even though my dad had done so well when he took his licensing exam that he got a special certificate from the state, he was able to serve only very poor patients, and had to charge accordingly.</p>
<p>When my parents died, my inheritance was very small, far smaller than would be the case of most people who are the offspring of dentists.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, because of the historic discrimination against African Americans – which included things such as mainstream newspapers covering black people only in crime stories, mainstream magazines and television not showing any African American celebrities, models, etc., and textbooks claiming that black people were genetically inferior, probably virtually everyone in this country (including blacks) has negative impressions of black people that cause blacks not to get things like jobs even when they are very qualified for them.</p>
<p>For example, recent research indicated that when employers are given job applications that are identical except that one has a name that is clearly African American and the other does not, the one with the “white” sounding name is likely to get the interview. </p>
<p>Similar research on applicants seeking apartments found that people with “black” sounding voices were far less likely to be told apartments were available than were people with “white” sounding voices.</p>
<p>A fascinating site that allows one to find out one’s unconscious biases, including in terms of race, is here: <a href=“https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/research/[/url]”>https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/research/</a></p>
<p>Do you feel guilty about being born in America as opposed to say in North Korea or a farm in China or Iran or some other place where your opportunities would be limited much more than they are now as an African American?</p>
<p>I don’t feel guilty, but I certainly do know that I have unearned privileges and opportunities because of the accident of where I was born. </p>
<p>I also know that the US became a superpower not because our people were smarter or more hard working than those in other countries, but because due to location, we were not devastated by the two World Wars. We also lack the climate problems and disease problems (such as widespread malaria) that Africa has.</p>