<p>Just trying to start a discussion on why diversity is so important, how is diversity measured, and how the elite prep schools are doing relative to their goals if any.</p>
<p>I said I was going to leave this post alone, but after looking back at the sort of “new” conversation, I have some things to add. @Exie, about the kids coming from ABC in groups is exactly what I have seen. I know many kids in my school who are of a different race than the average ( Indian for this “story”). This big group of girls who are all Indian and moved to America when they were babies are always hanging out together. They will be nice to you if you talk to them, but if one of their fellow indian friends come, they will completely ignore you and start talking to their other friend. I know that many of you could counter that the girls are just friends, but I have seen this sort of thing with kids of the same race who barely know eachother. I think this makes racism in schools so much worst. While some kids will try to break barriers, many will refuse. So, when these kids of one race get more scholarship advantages, academic oppurtunities, and other special things, they are bounded closer together more seperate from the rest of the people around them of different races. This is not meant to offend anybody, this is just how I see this problem. Also, this is not meant to be rude, although I know some of the wording may make it seem so :)</p>
<p>The majority of financial aid goes to white students at most schools.</p>
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<p>“Birds of the same feather flock together.” Have you tried making friends with them? I’m sure they would love to come to your Halloween party if you had invited them.</p>
<p>Going back to the original topic of the thread: </p>
<p>All the Presidents, Senators, Congressmen, CEOs, Boarding School Headmasters are all African-American, Hispanic, or Asian. Whites are relegated to apple-, berry-picking, cleaning airports, etc… What is the world coming to? I can’t but empathize with the plights of the white people.</p>
<p>@ karategirl2005 You make some good points and very astute observations. People can bond with one another in many ways. You point out the obvious: they know each other well enough to be close friends. You point out the less obvious: they don’t know each other personally, but know that they share things in common (values, language, life experiences, etc.). I think if racial diversity programs had but one goal – to reduce the impact of economic disparity – they would be misguided and missing the mark. But we’re a nation of multi-taskers so it shouldn’t be difficult to see how there are multiple effects from programs like ABC…and part of what the program does is (a) recognize the insularity dynamic that you’ve described, and then (b) transfer it by exposing one insular group to a broader population (drawn from multiple groups, insular and not-so-insular) where that all-new group (e.g., the graduating class of 201# at Exover Academy) has its own special bond.</p>
<p>These bonds that people have are good things, but only up to a point. In the case of your Indian friends, it may be too insular for their own good. But bonds are useful because we want people to trust one another and form relationships without having to work from scratch. We’re always looking for common ground with people…but if we restrict ourselves within an increasingly narrow circle we quickly become too myopic and distrustful. If, however, there are more and more insular groups intersecting and bleeding over into each other, then that’s beneficial for everyone. Imagine if one or two of those Indian girls, and one or two ABC program students, and you and a couple of your current friends went through an transformative experience together. The other circles that you all belong to wouldn’t evaporate; those connections would continue to exist…but you would all have new connections and openings into other circles where you would have credibility and trust and understanding and empathy. (A good look at the beneficial impact of cross-fertilizing typically insular groups is the movie “The Breakfast Club.”)</p>
<p>An organization like ABC creates a little external force toward the end of breaking the inertial stasis that tends to exist in typically insular racial communities. Before you get into the boarding school circle, you’re correct: it looks like ABC is crowding you out. But when you’re on the inside of the boarding school circle, it turns out that they’ve expanded your connectivity and reach. A boarding school is serving the interests of its students, not its applicants…so your present perspective does not lack validity; it’s just that your perspective does not have much traction in the marketplace because the schools are trying to improve the experience for their student community, not the applicant pool. And, of course, one of the reasons you want to get into a boarding school is because of the beneficial experience – an experience that is enhanced to some extent by programs that, prior to matriculation, appear to be operating at odds with you.</p>
<p>I don’t think people are dismissive or offended by your personal perspective. It’s valid and, I think, well-informed. I believe the point that others here are emphasizing is not how your perspective is wrong but, instead, how other perspectives (<-- plural) also come into play. It’s not just about economics – though there’s some of that. It’s not just about numbers to report to data-gatherers – though there’s some of that. It’s not just about social justice or “affirmative action” – though there’s some of that. It’s a package deal and, for whatever reasons they find most compelling, many boarding schools apparently believe that racial diversity programs are beneficial to the school community and its sustainability. Your position isn’t wrong; it just doesn’t outweigh the other interests that the boarding schools are factoring – until, of course, you matriculate and your position, as a beneficiary, is more closely aligned with your school’s perspective!</p>
<p>Good luck with your applications.</p>
<p>D’yer, you’re always good. But that was REALLY good!! Beautifully stated.</p>
<p>Absolutely! Well said @D’yermaker!</p>
<p>Prep schools did not adopt affirmative action policies to help wealthy kids. They instituted them to level the academic playing field for poor minority children. And they did so, in part, because wealthy children have educational advantages poor children demonstrably lack for the reasons I argued in a previous post.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, some argue that wealthy minority children deserve affirmative action because racism still exists in America. However, how does granting affirmative action to a wealthy URM help an economically disadvantaged URM who actually needs affirmative action? And as social justice is the objective, why should race trump class? Isn’t poverty as real and as compelling as racism? </p>
<p>Predicating affirmative action on class, not race, is a color blind approach that benefits poor and lower middle class students of all races, ethnicities, and religions. Achieving this goal of greater economic diversity is not just a matter of providing scholarships to needy students. It is also a question of admitting more poor and lower middle class children to prep schools.</p>
<p>Increasing economic diversity is necessary because prep schools are disproportionately comprised of wealthy students. To understand why, consider the following:</p>
<p>A. The $50,000 it typically costs to attend a top boarding school exceeds the $48,735 median household income in America. It also surpasses the adjusted gross income roughly 62% of Americans report on their federal income tax returns.</p>
<p>B. Financial aid ameliorates this income gap. It does not eliminate it. At Deerfield, for example, 65% of the students attend on a full pay basis. These full-pay students typically come from households with over $200,000 in annual income, according to what an admission officer told me. </p>
<p>C. These full-pay households, in turn, have greater annual incomes than about 97.5% or more of all American households. Hence, the top 2.5% or so of the wealthiest Americans, or their foreign counterparts, disproportionately represents the substantial majority of students at prep schools like Deerfield.</p>
<p>D. This principle is as true at Exeter where up to 53% of the full pay students come from families in this top 3% as it is at Lawrenceville where up to 71% of the students come from families in this top 3%. </p>
<p>Notwithstanding this lack of economic diversity, some parents apparently regard prep school admission as a zero sum game where one child’s gain may be their child’s loss. Hence, they seemingly view unfairness to economically disadvantaged children as necessary collateral damage in a system that gives preference to their children.</p>
<p>It is right for parents to recognize the existence of racism. It is wrong for anyone to deny the racial progress progress America has made. The America of today is different than the America of fifty years ago. Caucasian students are now a minority at all Ivy League universities except Dartmouth where they comprise 50% of the student population. And students of color comprise 40% of the students at top prep schools such as Andover and Hotchkiss.</p>
<p>This racial diversity has had a positive impact on America’s elite educational institutions. It is now time to make prep schools more economically diverse as well. Fundamental fairness dictates nothing less.</p>
<p>@jmilton: You ask, “Isn’t poverty as real and as compelling as racism?” The answer is no. Poverty affects everybody, however racism is an added, fully separate burden that does not affect whites because, well, they’re white. You keep trying to conflate the two, but they cannot be combined or viewed through the same lens.</p>
<p>You say that racism is more moderated (or hidden) today than it was 50 years ago. But to claim that sufficient racial progress has been made over 50 years that we no longer need to answer it with specific remedies is truly wishful thinking.</p>
<p>Parlabane,</p>
<p>The zero sum game of identity politics you play leads to the kind of virtual economic apartheid I described in my last post. By contrast, the economic diversity I propose necessarily results in racial, ethnic, and religious diversity because people in every segment of society are economically disadvantaged. </p>
<p>In the wishful thinking department, it would nice if the Great Recession never happened. But it did. And we cannot ignore its devastating results. Fourteen million Americans are unemployed. Millions more are underemployed. The real estate market has collapsed. Retirement accounts are being decimated. About 25% of all mortgages are underwater. Foreclosures are at all-time highs.</p>
<p>These economic problems, however, do not appear to be sufficiently compelling for you. You argue that race trumps class regardless of the circumstances. Hence, a 14-year-old white kid from Western Pennsylvania whose unemployed parents just lost their home in a foreclosure seemingly has neither a name nor a face in your brave new world of prep school admissions. </p>
<p>Instead, you appear to turn a blind eye to the devastating economic problems kids like this face and a deaf ear to their pleas for a fair shot at prep school admission. In short, you ignore the fact that social injustice appears in kaleidoscopic forms as you view the world through the single prism of race.</p>
<p>“Hence, a 14-year-old white kid from Western Pennsylvania whose unemployed parents just lost their home in a foreclosure seemingly has neither a name nor a face in your brave new world of prep school admissions.”</p>
<p>I side with jmilton on this point.</p>
<p>One of the issues I have with ABC is that, as far as I know, it focuses on urban youth. Probably out of a density issue…by taking this approach the organization can no doubt reach/help more people. </p>
<p>But what about the kids in rural situations who could use an alternative to their ailing public school? And I’m not even talking about race here. Just geography. </p>
<p>There are kids of every color in our local district that I know could benefit from a BS education…kids for whom boarding school is no more real a concept than unicorns, or whose parents may think that they can’t afford it or whose only impressions (mostly negative) of boarding school come from movies like Dead Poets Society or School Ties. </p>
<p>These kids have no advocate. No one to set up interviews, no one to counsel on best fit, no one to help parents navigate a PFS. And regardless of my skin color, that bothers me a little.</p>
<p>Jmilton, I read your earlier post with interest not for what it has, but for what it doesnt. Please answer the following questions?</p>
<p>1.You said Exeter has 53% full pay students? How many full pay students are at Andover?</p>
<p>2.You said Andover has 40% people of color? How many of these people of color at Andover are full pay? How many people of color exist at say Exeter?</p>
<ol>
<li>Please give us the income distribution of Andover parents and lets compare notes to see how different they are from other top boarding schools like Deerfield. In fact, there are more uber-rich families at Andover than any other school as it is so large compared to most BS like Deerfield. </li>
</ol>
<p>Deerfield Rich Parents = 65% full pay x 600 total students = 390
Andover Rich Parents = 55% full pay x 1100 total students = 605</p>
<p>There you have it. Reality Check. You can fool some some of the time, you cant fool all all the time.</p>
<p>Sevendad, Poor kids from rural PA are already well taken care of. Just visit Andover and get the survey of how many poor, middle class white, non-AA kids are on FA and how many ABC kids are on FA. You probably know the answer even without visiting the campus, just by looking at all the pictures on their website.</p>
<p>Parlabane is simply saying that ABC doesn’t displace a poor kid from some other background from getting FA. It is one of the diversity components just like the schools take a poor, middle class white kid. Just because they don’t have a program like PMWK (poor, middle-class white kid) doesn’t mean PMWKs are not given FA. In fact you would find plenty of PMWKs at Andover.</p>
<p>When we learned riding bicycles, how many of us actually considered trailing wheels were such a good idea, and how many of us are still riding with them today?</p>
<p>With all the good intention and purpose at the time, all things, almost without exception, have their shelf life, and will all come to past.</p>
<p>When someone is lying on the operating table facing a life or death situation, I bet he/she couldn’t care less of the doctor’s skin color. What really matters there is the doctor’s skills to cure.</p>
<p>It is one thing to level the playing field so that really talented hands can rise up becoming skilled doctors to save lives, but it is quite another if people are leveling the field for the sake of leveling it.</p>
<p>I believe any organization or activity that’s based on and driven by race is inherently under the shadow of racism. Color blind may be an ideal goal, but it is a goal worth working for. I believe the time has come.</p>
<p>I also want to add that my parents came to this country with about $300 dollars in their pocket. They worked hard and earned two Master’s degrees each without any outside help based either on race or class.</p>
<p>@Milton, you say “These economic problems, however, do not appear to be sufficiently compelling for you. You argue that race trumps class regardless of the circumstances. Hence, a 14-year-old white kid from Western Pennsylvania whose unemployed parents just lost their home in a foreclosure seemingly has neither a name nor a face in your brave new world of prep school admissions.”</p>
<p>Wow. Not true. Without question, I appreciate the loss of opportunities across all ethnic boundaries, Caucasians included, resulting from the tragedy that is our economy today. But you STILL cannot use this terrible destruction of the middle and lower-middle class these last ten years to scrub away centuries of slavery where an entire population was violently, systemically and purposefully marginalized. That is a special wrong that will take a very long time to undo. </p>
<p>@hootoo, I agree with your premise generally about not bubbling kids up merely for the sake of doing so, but not where blacks are concerned. Your parents came to America with $300 each and are now successful, well educated citizens. Great. Do you somehow think that’s the same thing as coming here in shackles, as someone else’s property, being split from your kids, and having NO opportunities whatsoever? Can you begin to grasp the utter, total suffering, the daily and practical denial of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? So, you “believe the time has come” to put race aside as a special consideration? Really? That quick, eh?</p>
<p>Finally, jMilton, I do not claim “race trumps class;” I see them as separate problems deserving different remedies. A boarding school seeks a plurality of students. I fully subscribe to the importance of programs like ABC to do what they can to connect ambitious, curious, smart black kids to opportunities that would otherwise be out of reach.</p>
<p>hootoo, Your parents supposedly already have a college degree that is almost free (if they are from Asia) before they came to the US, compared to boarding schools costing 200 grand here in America. Thats why ABC kids need the money as they are poor. There are no rich kids in the ABC program that are getting FA. Why do you think ABC kids going to Exeter with FA wont make great surgeons? The best neurosurgeon or one of the best in the country is an African American at Johns Hopkins. The world is far from the ideal place that would not require programs such as ABC. You will learn this fact pretty soon that the world is a real world not utopia if you hadn’t already.</p>
<p>A privately funded foundation - or private school - has no obligation to do anything but be self sustaining. It may have a moral one, but parts of this discussion smacks of an elitism that suggests that where ever there is someone who didn’t get an advantage, someone else is responsible for making up that gap with their own resources. </p>
<p>Robin Hood is a fictional character last time I looked.</p>
<p>I’ve been on enough boards or committees to know that up until recently, it really had more to do with exposing the rich white kids to diversity than it did providing some magnanimous benefit to a poor black (hispanic, native, etc.) one. Although I’ve also listened to people pontificate the converse like the great misguided people they are - which for many of the “recipients” makes for a miserably uncomfortable existence on campus.</p>
<p>The truth is – There is simply not enough spots at all the boarding schools combined to take care of what is a global problem. Taking that 14-year old economically depressed white kid is not going to be as effective as - say - forcing the local wealthy privates school to absorb some.</p>
<p>I could say that if we’re going to pick on ABC (for the record I’m not a big fan of it) then let’s also go to the parochial school near my home which has NO African Americans and skirts that moral obligation by providing free tuition to parishioners who tithe 10% of their income and telling everyone else there’s a waiting list. The school is almost entirely white and blonde. Or the elite private school that routinely turns down urban kids with high (sometimes perfect) entrance exam scores unless they are full pays.</p>
<p>I’m just throwing that out as an extreme example to say that the solution is not in asking private schools or private foundations to “fix” society’s problems, or to distribute their wealth in a certain way. Because even if they did, someone would still scream that it bypassed their unique situation.</p>
<p>I mean really - there are scholarship funds for left handed people, kids raised by gay parents, etc. Are we going to throw them under the bus too because the person who doesn’t fit the criteria feels slighted? </p>
<p>ABC is trying to fix a problem still rampant. You have to live in the middle of it to believe that we still have the equivalent of third world countries operating right under our noses. That most of these kids come from environments where they are constantly told that things we all take for granted are not for them. They come from neighborhoods with zero role models and a media onslaught that constantly says all the heroes and heroines will be someone other than them.</p>
<p>Perhaps people as concerned about that white 14-year old, or that kid with immigrant parents, could get off their duffs and find a local solution. Or start their own foundation to fund kids like that. I spend every Tuesday evening tutoring and mentoring kids like that on my own dime and my own time. How about you?</p>
<p>How about be the change you demand of the groups being criticized for trying to fix one small piece of a much bigger issue?</p>
<p>By the way, I agree with the poster above who intimated that there are more white kids on FA (poor and middle class) at boarding schools than African Americans and Hispanics combined. My alumni donations pay for them too.</p>
<p>@Exie: Let the record show that should I ever amass any amount of wealth, I promise to start an organization for 14-year old left-handed white children of gay parents from the rural parts of Western Pennsylvania!</p>
<p>All kidding aside, you articulated some great points above, as have many in this thread.</p>
<p>But I will reiterate my belief that there are still a great many kids out there who have no advocate. And yes, that doesn’t seem right to me. </p>
<p>I’m not talking about who’s getting FA and who isn’t. I’m not even talking about who’s getting admitted and who isn’t. I’m talking about who is even aware that BS is an option for them…that BS even exists outside the realm of F. Scott Fitzgerald stories.</p>
<p>@Sevendad 
You’re one of this board’s greatest assets for sure!</p>
<p>You know, i was just talking to CC mom about that same F Scott Fitzgerald analogy. BS was a relative unknown in my city save for the token one or two kids Exeter recruited each year. I know my parents never heard of it. Prior to meeting with a recruiter our “exposure” was the old Haley Mills film The Trouble With Angels. So when my own daughter - who attended a racially mixed college prep school began applying, it was a huge shock. For most people - boarding school is either for the elite class or it’s a reform school on par with Juvie hall. </p>
<p>There are actually pockets of people around the country trying to expose communities (all races) to the existence of boarding schools - especially since the public schools and some local privates are failing gifted kids in droves. </p>
<p>The revolution will not be televised, but it is growing! :)</p>
<hr>
<p>P.S. My previous post was in response to the comments from @John Smith.</p>
<p>A Better Chance is a private foundation. They’ve chosen their mission, and they’ve been successful in achieving their aims. It’s their prerogative to choose their mission. A Better Chance states on their website,
</p>
<p>500 scholars at 300 schools works out to one or two per school. A few schools may take more, but it’s a small number of students. </p>
<p>Many of the students of color at leading boarding, day and public schools are paying full tuition.</p>
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<p>Amen to that…except that I’m not sure how questioning or resenting the table scraps given to a minority-based program creates space or parity for those advocate-less/advocate-worthy students.</p>
<p>That’s what’s laughable here, this idea that it’s the so-called “identity politics” that’s standing in the way of colorblind economic parity.</p>
<p>Let’s say that 10% of a school’s enrollment is generated through some sort of race-aware process, either internally or through external programs ABC. And let’s say that you’re for greater economic equity. Putting aside for the moment the fallacy that race-based programs are nothing more than poorly designed means to address economic injustice that serve no other function or add no other value, why would the resentment be directed at a program that does do SOME good (even if it’s inefficient)?</p>
<p>So the Iowa farm kid needs a break…and it’s all the rich black kids who should step aside because all, I don’t know, 12, 13 or 14 of them have gummed up the admissions opportunities for the poor white kids?</p>
<p>Isn’t it misguided to worry about the tiny dent that ABC makes in terms of admissions? There’s this rather large target population that slides into most of the seats at boarding schools…so, if you wanted to make the biggest possible impact and open up the greatest number of seats/beds for those poor kids of indeterminate color, why would someone insist that the first people who need to sacrifice for colorblind economic justice are privileged kids of color?</p>
<p>Please bear in mind that I’m just addressing a narrow point. I don’t buy into the argument that race-aware admissions programs are trying to address an economic injustice…so I don’t buy into the claim that they fail to do that effectively. I also don’t buy into the myth that race-aware admissions programs are designed to operate as a handout to the people who are admitted under them as much as they’re designed to elevate the entire school community on the post-matriculation side. But if I do – for argument’s sake – accept the idea that these programs provide handouts to address economic disparity, with benefits sometimes going to people who don’t have economic need, I still think it’s peculiar to single them out as an engine of economic injustice.</p>
<p>By the way, this conversation is far more intelligent and informative than almost any I’ve read or heard on this very sensitive and highly charged topic. Cheers to all the participants for that!</p>