<p>“Darn!!! If it just wasn’t for the diversity problem at the UCs your daughter would have turned down Harvard and Stanford for them. Sure.”</p>
<p>OK aglages. I thought I was being respectful when I posted earlier. You, however, are showing an incredible lack of sophistication and respect in many of your posts. Your implication that my daughter would never possibly choose UCLA or UCB over Harvard or Stanford is frankly ridiculous and completely discounts the merits of both of these colleges. As I wrote in my previous post, my D had been wearing a UCLA sweatshirt for years. Not a Harvard sweatshirt and not a Stanford sweatshirt. It took quite a lot to change her mind about the college: an unbelievably low rate of “diversity” + overcrowding + disgruntled students and professors all led her to apply to only three UCs (she would have applied to more) and led her to throw the dice and apply to some of the colleges that have the lowest acceptance rates in the nation (HYPSM).</p>
<p>If you only could read the “Why School XYZ?” essays that she had to write for many of the colleges she applied to you would see that her primary criteria in a college, other than our ability to pay of course and the appropriate curriculum, was diversity. The opportunity, the pleasure, the **privilege **of meeting and interacting with kids from a variety of lifestyles, cultures and races (including her own) was what *she *valued most in her selection of a college.</p>
<p>I do not believe that diversity in a college or workplace is important to everyone. Of course it isn’t! But, just as some kids will make the final selection of their college based on weather, proximity to a large or small city, presence or not of a core curriculum, or even the size of the dorm rooms, my D made her initial shortlist of colleges based on diversity, which, unfortunately, immediately tossed UCLA and UCB out of the running.</p>