A better chance: racist?

Prep School Admissions
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<p>Wow! What a post. Here it is the autumn after my Exeter classes fortieth reunion and this crops up. Although I was not part of the ABC program way back then, I was just an Afro-American (times and labels do change) kid running away from home in style by attending boarding school. Lawrenceville had been my dream destination after reading Owen Johnson’s stories in second grade. But Exeter’s Rick Mahoney convinced me to pick Exeter instead by telling me that Exeter needed me just as much as I needed it. I mention this
because that one statement opened my eyes to the very important fact that such schools endeavor to prepare young people for life. In doing so, the best schools attempt to use secondary education to model as much of real life as possible. Hence the need for diversity and not just racial diversity. So I began to regard myself as a resource. I was someone whose knowledge, talents AND background had a perceived value. Someone who could bring something to the table (any Harkness table pun is definetely intended).</p>

<p>During a period of self doubt in my first term at Exeter, I asked the late great Hamilton Bissell (you should certainly google him) why he had bothered to recruit me. He replied: “A school’s student body is like a nine hundred piece puzzle and Admissions job is to see that all the proper pieces are available. You are here because you have abilities that others will need. Your job is not to be the whole picture. Just play to your strengths; connect with other pieces that fit and you’ll do just fine.”</p>

<p>So karategirl, don’t give up before you even try. As @Invent mentioned, FA at the best schools can be a great help. Continue to build your strengths. Diversify your interests. Bring more to the table and you’ll do just fine. If anyone needs to learn from the diversity provided by a premier boarding school experience, surely it’s you.</p>

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<p>Hey, I just wanted to say I will not be posting on this thread anymore ( I tried not posting the last 2 days hoping it would dissapear), I wrote my opinion, I still believe in my opinion, but I do not want to get into arguments and make enemies :slight_smile: if there is anyway how I can delete this thread, it would be helpful… thankyou. I really am sorry that this has upset and angered so many people, but I love that there can be so many opinions… some have been helpful in my experience, and some have not. Please, if I have any questions in the future, do not judge me because of this thread.</p>

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<p>Don’t worry KG. One of the great values of boarding school is not merely its diversity, but the fruits of that diversity, which include having your views (and the views of others) constructively challenged. You may well find that some of your beliefs don’t have the underpinning you assume they do. It’s also normal at your age to hold a belief or a prejudice that upsets others. As long as you’re open to having your mind changed in the face of evidence to the contrary, you’ll be just fine.</p>

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<p>Nicely stated, Parlabane.</p>

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<p>As an user above intimated, having read the initiating thread it was as difficult to not reply as to reply and give an unemotional response. Exie, you most certainly saved all of us the trouble with your very thoughtful response.</p>

<p>I would like to remind the prospective students on this board that none of the major boarding schools (and I’m including the large academies such as Exeter and Andover as well as the small schools like Groton, Deerfield, and St. Mark’s) offers merit scholarships. Financial aid is awarded solely on need. So, whether you apply through ABC, some other 3rd party program, or directly to the school as the vast majority of applicants do, the level of financial aid you receive will be based on your family’s ability to pay and not on the route through which you approached the school. I’m sure if you contact any of these schools they will tell you that there is not set-aside for any particular grouping of financial aid applicants. That said, the smaller schools, while need-blind in their admission policies (e.g., they admit the most qualified applicants regardless of their ability to pay) may still not be able to fulfill all of those applicants’ financial need). In the case of ABC, its cohort may appear to get high levels of aid due through applying via ABC whereas the reality is just that they are the neediest applicants.</p>

<p>All that said, I hope that one thing your 2-3-4-5 years in a competitive boarding school will teach you is to think critically. Very little is written on the surface.</p>

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<p>Well, make that none of the major boarding schools in New England. Lawrenceville, for example, offers merit scholarships.</p>

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<p>Again, the overwhelming majority of schools are not need-blind, and will take financial need into consideration in making admissions decisions. The two notable exceptions are Andover and St. Andrew’s.</p>

<p>And Deerfield, with an enrollment over 600, is hardly what I’d call a “small school.” ;)</p>

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<p>Race-aware and racist should not be conflated.</p>

<p>The idea that we should all be color-blind and treat each other as though there’s no difference is a noble one and an ideal worth striving for, but to call out programs as “racist” because they make race-based distinctions is to buy into the idea that we’ve reached a point where everyone is already on an equal footing. And that’s just not true.</p>

<p>Like it or not, the baggage is totally different depending on people’s skin color. There’s this temptation to say, “Hey, if someone set up an organization exclusively for helping white people to learn about boarding schools and how to adjust for them and get into them, that would be racist!” so when we see an organization that does that exclusively for black people, it’s no surprise that people immediately leap to the conclusion, “Hey, that’s racist!”</p>

<p>Here’s the problem with that: race in America cannot be reduced to pre-algebraic concepts like the rule of transitivity, where, if Caucasian = African-American, then ABC + African-American = ABC + Caucasian. It’s not like that at all. If you’re going to reduce it to mathematical constructs like that, then it requires differential calculus, where you need to plot out twisted, curved patterns that intersect at multiple points and diverge at others.</p>

<p>As far as I’m concerned, Louis CK gets it just about right here (warning: colorful language): [Louis</a> CK - Being White - YouTube](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>

<p>And, of course, this is about survival for boarding schools as much as it is about promoting diversity and world harmony, etc. White people as a percentage of the U.S. population are dwindling. The long-term outlook is a white plurality, not a white majority, in higher education. Survival for educational institutions means building inroads to other communities now, so that when it comes time to look to other ethnic communities to fill out the dorms and classrooms, the groundwork will be complete. This is why colleges suddenly went co-ed in the late '60s. Sure, there was some degree of “enlightenment” regarding gender, but the real impetus for change was a look at the demographics.</p>

<p>Sometime around 1966, someone looked at the trends and birth records and put together whatever they used before PowerPoint in order to bring boards of regents and school administrators around to the sobering realization that American education was marching inexorably toward the world that exists right now. And that world happens to be a world in which females make up the majority of the applicant pool at the most competitive colleges and universities and, frankly, where they’re also kicking butt statistically. If the Ivy League had waited for the trend to come to fruition before acting, they might be shutting down instead of flourishing. So don’t get too caught up in the notion that programs like ABC are fueled by left-wing progressivism and not right-wing capitalism. If there wasn’t a business case for co-education and ethnically-aware outreach, you wouldn’t notice its impact it would be so minimal. If programs like ABC still seem racist or offensive, blame the free market system.</p>

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<p>The real issue in prep school admissions should be class, not race.</p>

<p>The child of an African-American or Latino doctor has the same educational and economic advantages as the child of an Anglo or an Asian lawyer. These children typically go to the same kind of private schools with small classes and excellent teachers. Expensive academic tutors and sports lessons with private instructors give them a competitive edge. And many of their parents pay princely sums to private SSAT tutors and admission consultants. </p>

<p>By contrast, children from poor or lower middle class families lack these advantages regardless of their race, ethnicity, or religion. They often go to large public schools with crowded classes taught by overworked and underpaid teachers. Because their parents face the constant economic burden of making ends meet, these children lack the benefits of tutors, private lessons, or consultants. And they face the further competitive disadvantage of needing full financial aid when they apply to need aware prep schools.</p>

<p>The fact that a poor or a middle class child is white does not exempt him or her from this crushing economic reality. If anything, the focus on race, rather than wealth, in prep school admissions puts these white children at a disadvantage. Their African-American or Latino counterparts have special scholarships and receive affirmative action not available to them. They also face the possibility that wealthy URMs may receive an admissions’ advantage not granted to them – one that any wealthy applicant neither needs nor should fairly receive.</p>

<p>Is it any wonder, then, that some poor or lower middle class white children are upset by a prep school admission process that focuses on race, not class? These kids don’t want to hear liberal nostrums about identity politics that force them to sit in the back of the prep school admission bus. They just want a fair shake. They understand, as we all should, that poor and lower middle class kids of all races, ethnicities, and religions need a helping hand in the prep school admission process. </p>

<p>This is not a white, black, or brown problem. It is a human problem. We ignore it only at our own peril.</p>

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<p>Yeah, all the extremely wealthy African-American students are taking up too many spaces in boarding schools. It’s an epic problem. (Not to mention that they’re not constituents of ABC, but let’s not bother with facts.)</p>

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<p>jmilton - wow - while you articulate well the burdens faced by the economically disadvantaged, you completely miss D’yer’s point (and everyone else’s), which is that racism is a separate ADDITIONAL reality and hardship, beyond a lack of means. A rich black kid does not enjoy a prejudice-free world because he’s rich. He may have greater means at his disposal to combat the racism like a good education, a well nourished body and loving parents, but he STILL has hurdles that he faces because of his skin color: social hurdles, career hurdles and emotional hurdles. I mean no disrespect, but your post comes across as seriously detached from reality.</p>

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<p>Yes, let’s callously ignore the fact that the Great Recession greatly expanded the size of the underclass in America. And while we are it, let’s also create strawman arguments by distorting what people say so that we can smugly refute arguments they didn’t make.</p>

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<p>I agreed with your point on the greatly (and tragically) expanded size of the underclass; I share the same opinion. And I apologize if I sounded smug; I didn’t mean to. I just think you’re missing the boat with your analysis of and conclusions about race and class. The comments sounded angry and white to me. Healthy prep school admissions should look at many factors to ensure the diversity (social, economic, academic, extracurricular) of a class. Race is a legitimate, separate admission’s factor and should not, in my view, be discounted because the economy has soured and increased the number of economically disadvantaged families.</p>

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<p>Wading into this at my own peril.</p>

<p>As I have disclosed elsewhere, I am a minority (but alas, not a doctor, lawyer, or hedge fund manager). While I am not AA, Hispanic, or Native American — my skin is dark enough that I was asked twice in our search last year some version of “Are you with ABC?/What program are you with?” Once by a fellow parent and once by an AO.</p>

<p>The parent mentioned above shared with me that the school we were both visiting was one of 12 on a list of schools he had been provided — I assume by ABC or perhaps NJ SEEDS (a similar program).</p>

<p>My personal gripes with these programs aside, I want to throw out this thought to the forum: Based on recent threads about “who drives the process?”…Where do people stand on ABC-type programs, where it seems that neither the student nor the parents are driving the process?</p>

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<p>While I don’t question the effort and the value of the admission policies in trying to achieve diversity on campus, I do think “technically”, elite prep schools and colleges are sometimes lost in their pursuit of diversity. They’d focus more on how to look good “on paper” instead of making serious efforts in leveling the field. For example, they’d admit someone as an international student even though the individual might’ve grown up in the US and gone to the best schools here. They’d apply their URM policy to someone that as jimilton described has had less hardships than many ORM applicants…</p>

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<p>Any outside group that tries to lift up and expose qualified and ambitious youngsters who would not otherwise have such an opportunity is a positive force for boarding schools. In ABC’s case, it’s great for top boarding schools to leverage that organizations’ ability to facilitate connections, introductions and possible admittances. ABC can get a kid to the alter, but the School still makes the call on admission.</p>

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<p>@Sevendad - I think neither drives the process initially because they don’t know anything about the process and don’t often have the means to do the vetting or research (although today, the internet is leveling the playing field). I do worry about the program because BS’s are not a one-size, fits all scenario and I would hope that if the ABC program is “steering” they are also looking at fit, not satisfying some end-year placement goals on a performance review. </p>

<p>What I have noticed is how many of those students cling together once they arrive on campus. Strength in numbers. It may be because they have to go through sessions and meetings together before going to BS. It may be because the environment is extremely foreign. </p>

<p>For the most part, however, the ABC parents are thrilled to have an opportunity for their children. In many communities - it serves as a beacon to others that there’s a world outside of the neighborhood boundaries.</p>

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<p>For those who think that diversity should be about “class.” Boarding schools don’t exist to try to level playing fields, solve economic disparities, etc. They exist to build strong alumni leaders who will be world contributors, and also support the school so it can continue its mission.</p>

<p>So we need to eliminate the sense of “entitlement” that sometimes pervades the popular argument that boarding schools - as private entities - have some obligation to be “fair” or focus on economically disadvantaged kids, or favor a race, or stop limiting the number of (fill in the blanks), or take only the top scores or …</p>

<p>It is what it is. Diversity these days can also mean the white kid from Montana, the white girl who is certified in scuba diving but struggles in science, or the kid from a farm in Iowa who is the first in his family to even think about college. From that perspective, the diversity at the Admissions meeting is broader than you think.</p>

<p>But the reality is also that up to 70% of the students at Boarding Schools are full pays. Given the limited number of slots for FA, it’s a delicate balancing act to fill them.</p>

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<p>

I don’t feel this is a “conventional” idea, but I don’t know how to make of it. What do other posters think? Is the ultimate purpose of or the ideal behind achieving racial/socioeconomic (or even geographic) diversity to level the playing fields so the disavantaged are given opportunities to move up the social ladder, or is the purpose just to identify “world leaders” and potential doners for the school?</p>

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<p>@DAndrew: Are you framing a general question about the “…purpose…behind…achieving…diversity”? Exie is stating what seems to me to be a simple fact of private BS. They were never in the business of leveling anyone’s playing field (and are not required to be in that business). Do any of the brochures state that? That they are increasingly trying to be more diverse and accessible to a broader popluation is very much to their credit, but is not their charter.</p>

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<p>Bookmarked</p>