A Startling Statistic at UCLA

Parents Forum
181

<p>You can outreach into the community through programs. There was a program that came into our local hs that helped with college admissions/financial aid (once or twice a week). Although it was geared to kids who were low income, any kid could come in and get help. </p>

<p>I remember 3 of the different people who came in as helpers--2 Hispanics, 1 Anglo. Most of the kids who came to be helped were Hispanic--can't remember a single Af-Am kid who came in for help, now that I think of it.</p>

<p>Not that we don't send Af-Am kids to college--our top Af-Am kids go to top colleges around the country. But what about the rest? I don't know...</p>

182

<p>
[quote]
And there are millions of assimilated Asians, Latinos, and others who readily move in and out of the ethnic enclaves and the society at large, providing a buffer. What's your point?

[/quote]
The point is, there was a ready assimilated population which buffered against sweeping changes so that the newcomers could more easily learn the culture and function within the legal structures of the time. But when newcomers enter on their own, by the millions intentionally flaunting the structure, and when our leaders fail to even see the moral and practical implications of such a thing, I just can’t see how we can legitimately keep maintaining the thing that makes us – us. We are not a nation of blood, friend. We are a nation of ideals, ideals codified in law.</p>

<p>
[quote]
The only difference between now and then is that today we're seeing large numbers of NON-WHITE immigrants. That's about it. In terms of sheer numbers, it's not that different.

[/quote]
That is not the only difference. The difference now is that millions are entering every year and they are doing this being intentionally heedless of the law. It is just no way to hold together a culture based not on blood, but on ideals. In other words, our ideals are codified in law, and law serves as the religion unifying all. If this is the basis of our culture and we have millions of people flaunting it, what does it say about us and our future as a people?</p>

<p>I understand the issues of these people and think something should be done about it. But I think there is a much larger picture that is really being overlooked and that is vital for the health of all, especially for those here who are already citizens and who have historical issues that are not yet resolved. I fear they never will be resolved if we rapidly flood the nation with people who do not know our history or even care enough to follow the laws that history has given us. We might think this will all just go away of its own as the population changes. But it certainly will not. America will only be as strong as its weakest people, and in an age of terrorism, that will be very important. How do we keep a nation such as America, one suddenly built on the shoddy foundation implied by illegal immigration? I see only one way, a very huge and amazingly pervasive and invasive military. We are really talking an America that is not even America.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Uncontrolled? Don't ignore the marked difference between the past and today. Besides, if you're just referring to illegal immigrants, then it's a different conversation altogether. But don't lump all these browns and yellows into the same group, as they have very different cultural values.

[/quote]
I’m not sure I understand this. I have been talking illegal immigration all along. I cannot possibly be talking about immigrants who enter by our law and controls. When I say uncontrolled immigration, I refer to exactly that, people who come here outside of our controls.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Not immigrants. Somewhat of a poor analogy, don't you think?

[/quote]
I don’t think so. Maybe the immigrants can trust people who only give lip service to values. But that still will not take care of the problem being addressed here in this thread.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Let me put it this way: Which group is MORE LIKELY to be affect [a group of 600,000 or a group of 40,000]?

[/quote]
In almost every case, both groups are more likely to be seriously affected if the two differ to any significant degree, if they intercourse to any significant degree, and especially if their contact occurs rapidly.</p>

183

<p>
[quote]
They can recruit as aggressively as they want. They just can't admit based on race alone.

[/quote]
This implies they can admit based in some way, however small, on race. Is this true? I guess I should just find the law and read it.</p>

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<p>No, they are not supposed to use race at all in admissions decisions. But since that law was enacted the schools have tried mightily to develop surrogates for race. So they give bigger boosts for economic hardship. And one of the essays prompts the applicants to explain what sorts of "life challenges" they have overcome - leaving most comfy upper-middle class white kids with basically nothing to write about in that section, unless you consider cracking your oboe reed just before the big concert a "life challenge." The whole "comprehensive review" admissions program was developed once AA went out the window. Without AA, they wore worried that their old stats-driven admissions criteria would have wiped out nearly all the URMs and made the UCs predominantly Asian with whites struggling to hang in there.</p>

<p>Critics charge that the UCs are thus practicing "back door affirmative action", but they deny it. They say that those measures and the outreach programs are just what they are allowed to do and what they need to do to try to keep their URM numbers up, serve all the residents of California, and provide for a diverse student body. And the point of this whole thread was that UCLA and UCSD apparently aren't being very successful at it.</p>

185

<p>
[quote]
I live in the midwest . . . also, the UCs dont go very far to recruit minority students. I never even recieved any mail from any of the UCs besides Berkeley let alone a phone call or personal visit.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I think your location had something to do with it, and maybe the SAT II situation. </p>

<p>I don't believe that UCLA is doing nothing for recruitment.</p>

<p>
[quote]
What Has UCLA Been Doing Within the Provisions of Proposition 209?</p>

<p>UCLA continues to be a strong participant in the Early Academic Outreach Program, and when the state Legislature didn't make funding available for this fiscal year for the programs, Chancellor Albert Carnesale provided the funds for the program to continue.
EAOP operates in 92 schools in Los Angeles County — 60 high schools and 32 middle schools — to help prepare students for the opportunity to make college possible by working together with families, educators, schools and communities to promote and cultivate a college-going culture.
UCLA students, under the Student Initiated Access Committee, work with students in grades K-14 in educationally disadvantaged areas.
UCLA students from SIAC projects provide weekly, ongoing services, including one-on-one peer advising, tutoring, skills building and workshops.
They also provide field trips, and parent dinners and workshops.
Their projects also join with various student organizations to host large-scale events promoting college, most of which take place annually.
The Vice Provost Initiative for Pre-College Scholars, known as VIPS, is a partnership with the Los Angeles and Pasadena school districts to help prepare historically underrepresented 9th- through 12th-graders to become competitively eligible for admission to UCLA and to encourage pursuit of graduate and professional education.
VIPS is focused on underserved students, including students from low-income and first-generation families, which includes underrepresented minorities.
VIPS services include college preparatory workshops, Buddy Day (high school students shadow UCLA students for a day), college advising and career and major seminars.
The UCLA Center for Community College Partnerships develops and strengthens academic partnerships between UCLA and California community colleges, particularly those with large underrepresented student populations. The center works to help the community colleges develop a "transfer culture."
The center works closely with community college administrators, faculty and staff to strengthen and diversify curriculum, create strong academic support programs, improve students' academic competitiveness for admission to the university and increase the diversity of UCLA's transfer admit pool.
Among the center's programs is the East Los Angeles College Summer Immersion Program, a collaboration of the Youth Opportunity Movement, East Los Angeles College and UCLA. This intense 16-day academic program requires participants to complete successfully a three-unit UC/CSU transferable course in a two-week period.
The UCLA Anderson School of Management offers the Riordan Programs, which are pioneering, career-based outreach programs that motivate high school students, college students and recent college graduates from diverse backgrounds and underserved communities to consider and prepare for careers in management through education, mentorship and professional development.
For undergraduates, The Riordan Scholars Program targets college-bound 10th-, 11th- and 12th-grade high school students who are interested in learning about business and developing leadership skills. Scholars attend eight monthly Saturday seminars at the Anderson School of Management.
The UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science has the Center for Excellence in Engineering and Diversity, known as CEED, which is committed to the development, recruitment and retention of underrepresented and disadvantaged students in the disciplines of engineering and computer science.
Since 1997, CEED's K-12 programs have served nearly 70 teachers, more than 4,000 students and more than 600 parents from urban schools in both the Los Angeles and Inglewood school districts. K-12 efforts are designed both to increase college-going rates of underrepresented youth, and increase the number of urban youths interested in and prepared for majors in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The Academic Advancement Program holds yield events — AAP Freshmen Scholars Days — for a variety of admitted students, including African American admits, where they welcome students and their families on campus in an effort to increase enrollment at UCLA.
AAP also holds a scholars day for transfer students.
UCLA collaborates with the community through the UCLA Urban Collaborative.
UCLA collaborates with four parent groups — Advocates for African American Students, serving the San Fernando Valley; Council for African American Parents, serving the Pomona and Diamond Bar area; King-Drew Parent Association at the King-Drew Magnet High School of Medicine and Science, serving the Lynwood/Watts area; and Young Black Scholars, serving Los Angeles County.
Among UCLA's ways to assist are providing training for the groups' academic advisers, having a UCLA admissions counselor make presentations at community sites about UCLA, giving information about financial aid and assisting them with holding events at UCLA.
The UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture has the ArtsBridge program. Their primary activity is to develop creative partnerships in arts education that bridge UCLArts with artists, teachers and students in underperforming schools in Los Angeles.
They also work closely with schools and school districts to envision and implement structural change in their arts education programming.
They are working to link local community arts centers with their neighborhood schools to enrich youth arts programs in their area.
They are offering our first summer scholarships to high school students in partner schools to attend the summer arts institute in design at UCLA, providing mentorship opportunities for local artists to support these teenage artists and working closely with UCLArts' ArtsBridge.
BruinCorps is a Student Affairs program working with schools in the community. Their partners are primarily Los Angeles Unified School District sites: early childhood centers (5), elementary schools (7), middle schools (5), high schools (2), community-based organizations (8) and the City of Los Angeles (2 sites).
They also have partnerships with the UCLA Community-based Learning Program. BruinCorps provides tutoring and mentoring to children/youth in grades pre-K through 12 at schools and community-based organizations in East, South, West and downtown Los Angeles.
In addition, at high schools, middle schools and community-based organizations located in low-income areas, BruinCorps establishes and staffs College/Career Centers to support preparation for and admission into college, as well as to provide financial aid information.
The UCLA School of Law also works with students in educationally disadvantaged communities. Their program participants are undergraduate and graduated students who have expressed an interest in law and whose experiences reflect limited familial exposure to post-collegiate education, career opportunities, mentoring and social support systems.
Many of their participants have overcome economic and/or educational hardships and challenges, or have come from or demonstrated leadership experience in economically or educationally underserved communities.
The services they provide include advising prospective applicants on all aspects of the law school application process, exposing participants to legal education and the practice of law, mentoring and assisting individuals in developing a customized action plan, providing scholarships for LSAT prep courses, and presenting application and admissions information at workshops, information sessions and career panels.
The David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA has a program working with disadvantaged and traditionally underrepresented premedical students (90 percent) and pre-dental students (10 percent) who show promise for medical and dental training and careers, and who indicate an interest in providing service in designated California Health Manpower Shortage Areas.
Students are exposed to the rigorous prerequisite basic science review classes, hands-on clinical preceptorships in community and research settings, and admissions test preparation, conducted by medical and basic science faculty or community practitioners. Students are mentored in small groups, led by current medical and dental students.
The UCLA African Student Union hosts an annual education conference to promote and encourage student empowerment among youth of African descent in an effort to increase the number of African Americans at institutions of higher education, including UCLA.
Elected officials have sent letters to African American admits urging them to enroll at UCLA.
The athletics department sponsors the "I'm Going to College" program that, mostly for middle school students, combines educational fairs and campus tours with attending UCLA athletic events.
-UCLA-

[/quote]
</p>

<p><a href="http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=7108&menu=fullsearchresults%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=7108&menu=fullsearchresults&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>It seems like they're doing something. Like they say, it's the effectiveness that's the problem. And another question to ask is "How many of the outreached kids go to a college, be it community college or any type of school, that wouldn't have otherwise? How many go to other UC's than UCLA but were a part of UCLA's outreach programs?"</p>

186

<p>Dross - You stated: "Say you get 300 black kids pulling down SAT 1500+ and applying to any one top school with race not being a factor at all. Those kids are going in with upwards of 30,000 whites and Asians. And this 30,000 whites and Asians are vying for a very small number of seats. Basically, it means that no matter how hard these black kids work, the odds of their forming a good black representation at any one school are just very low."</p>

<p>Let me phrase this differently - let's say you get an equivalent percentage of blacks pulling the same scores as whites, Asians, and others all vying for a small number of seats. In this case, through the hard work of all of these kids, the demographics of the school will tend to approximate the demographics of the pool of applicants. In my mind this would be an ideal situation that I hope can manifest itself someday.</p>

<p>If race is factored into the admissions equation though, then by definition the admission will come at the expense of a person of another race. This is racism by definition. As another poster pointed out, it'll get very difficult to even determine the equation (quotas) to use as our demographics change continually. California has had a huge influx of Asians and hispanics in the last couple of decades for example, that has changed the demographics considerably. One year it might be whites that will be displaced because there are too many of them. Another year it might be Asians (actually they're the majority group now at a number of UCs so I suppose they'd be the top target). Someday, it might come at the expense of hispanics since they are now the majority in California. This idea of giving preferential treatment and negative treatment based on a person's race just isn't right in my mind.</p>

<p>There was a very low number of Af-Am applicants to UCLA (2166) which compounds the difficulty of admitting larger numbers. Maybe many of the qualified people in this group are simply getting better deals elsewhere or maybe, as you say, they're reluctant to go to a school where they don't see 'enough' others of their race (it makes me admire those who disregard this and attend anyway). I'm sure that if the number of qualified applicants goes up significantly, so will the number of admits. The target then, should be in increasing the number of qualified applicants.</p>

<p>btw - The focus on the thread is the number of Af-Am freshman admits decreasing. The number of number Af-Am transfer admits was up.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, the numbers of applicants is so low that the actual numbers can easlily go up and down each year without being statistically significant. </p>

<p>On another point - I think you asked about outreach programs - I posted a link earlier in this thread outlining what I think is an extensive outreach program by UCLA. It also has the stats.</p>

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<p>Looks like UCLA is doing quite a lot in the way of outreach. Thanks for posting that, ucsd/la dad.</p>

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<p>ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad</p>

<p>
[quote]
Let me phrase this differently - let's say you get an equivalent percentage of blacks pulling the same scores as whites, Asians, and others all vying for a small number of seats. In this case, through the hard work of all of these kids, the demographics of the school will tend to approximate the demographics of the pool of applicants. In my mind this would be an ideal situation that I hope can manifest itself someday.

[/quote]
I couldn’t agree more with this than I do. And, I’d just like to say right out that I don’t think you’re selfish or a racist or anything like that for taking the view. In fact, it is exactly the same argument my kids make, and, all things being equal, it is only fair. The problem with it is, of course, all things are not exactly equal today and they never have been. I personally think the ideal you’ve outlined here is a bit unrealistic in view of history and the current aftermath of history that most blacks have to deal with.</p>

<p>I mean, I have no real proof of what I am about to say, other than my own experience, but I think generally speaking, for a black kid to pull down the same scores as whites and Asians, his family has to do something very radical and weird to protect that kid’s mind at the early stages of development. I feel this very strongly, that at a very early age, perhaps before the kid can talk, he learns what the deal is in this world concerning expectations and begins to live down to them. What I am saying is, black parents are going to have to suffer and make their families suffer probably more than they are capable of suffering at the moment, in order to radically increase performance.</p>

<p>Now what I’d like to see is the development of structures so that black families can gain the protection for their children and still work to provide for their families and have a life for themselves. And I am trying hard to make some of this happen. But it is very difficult when you have to even sell the concept to people. It is gonna take some time.</p>

<p>But I do not think it wise to, in the meantime, just hammer the few black families who, despite the odds, have what it takes to suffer and still stand up with all those whites and Asians who have very little of the ball and chain history that we have. That is why, though I disagree with Affirmative Action, I think it is necessary.</p>

<p>
[quote]
If race is factored into the admissions equation though, then by definition the admission will come at the expense of a person of another race. This is racism by definition.

[/quote]
Indeed it is. I can’t really deny this. I’d love to deny it, but I think it is quite true. The problem is, racism is built in, packed in thick all through American society, and it is directed mainly at black folks (and others too, but definitely at blacks). So, I think, if you want diversity that includes blacks to any significant degree, you have got to do something to leave the door open for blacks with the strength to walk in. I basically look at it like this, as the whites and Asians are all stuffing themselves into the doorway of the party, the owner of the house might maybe wanna see the lone black guy trying to get in and tell them to let him in because he will make the party a little more interesting.</p>

<p>
[quote]
This idea of giving preferential treatment and negative treatment based on a person's race just isn't right in my mind.

[/quote]
I really understand this, and when you look at it putting faces to all those wonderful kids trying so hard to get into the same schools, I mean, there ain’t no way you can just casually take my view. In fact, I kind of don’t even take my view half the time because of exactly the thing you are saying. But I still keep coming back to the fact that preferential treatment is solidly built into our society due to the fallout of history. I don’t mean that blacks are completely without fault. I am saying that a very complex, but powerful number of historical forces are at work to put the thumb of the country right down on the heads of black people, and that it makes a LOT of blacks decide they don’t belong here and have no need to play the game in view of some long-term gain. And this just makes the country turn against blacks even more, which causes the problems to intensify, which causes blacks to…</p>

<p>In order to break this cycle, something very radical and weird needs to take place. And I gotta tell ya, any black family that does this is gonna need a lot of guts and weirdness to try it. It is just completely unrealistic to expect them to generally see it as things are now. So, my thinking is, in view of our circumstances, if one of us has the statistical goods so that we are as capable as the top whites or Asians, you don’t just throw that kid to the trash heap of percentages. This kid is just a wee bit different, and should get some attention. It is a hard one for me to defend, though, because all those individual white kids and Asians aren’t the cause of all this mess, though they benefit of it. They are just kids, decent kids who are trying to make their way.</p>

<p>
[quote]
There was a very low number of Af-Am applicants to UCLA (2166) which compounds the difficulty of admitting larger numbers. Maybe many of the qualified people in this group are simply getting better deals elsewhere or maybe, as you say, they're reluctant to go to a school where they don't see 'enough' others of their race (it makes me admire those who disregard this and attend anyway).

[/quote]
Yeah. I suspect if they have good stats, they are at the Ivies and top LACS, and if the money isn’t there or their circumstances don’t permit, you’ll find plenty at the local CC.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I'm sure that if the number of qualified applicants goes up significantly, so will the number of admits. The target then, should be in increasing the number of qualified applicants.

[/quote]
Absolutely. But my goodness, this is not exactly the kind of thing you can just throw money at and make happen. A very powerful psychological influence exists in America that is highly destructive of black progress. I mean, you have little black girls, very, very, very young, thinking themselves ugly and that their white counterparts are blessed above them by God. And this comes about at an amazingly young age, and it just keeps raining down on blacks in America, indeed in the whole world now, until death. It is just this amazing weight to stand up under. I say something very radical needs to take place to protect the young mind very early and start demanding great things of those young minds in ways that they do not even know demands are being made of them. That is going to take an extraordinary amount of time and effort. If you cut AffAction at once, you will be saying something that is very harsh to the few black kids who have struggle through all this ugly mess to get to the top.</p>

<p>
[quote]
btw - The focus on the thread is the number of Af-Am freshman admits decreasing. The number of number Af-Am transfer admits was up.

[/quote]
Is that right? Interesting. I wonder how significant was the increase, you know, whether it is a statistical fluke or part of a definite trend. That may give us some insight about how to deal with this issue.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Unfortunately, the numbers of applicants is so low that the actual numbers can easlily go up and down each year without being statistically significant.

[/quote]
Yeah. On this point, we have definite problems in the black community that are causing these low applications. We have got to get to the kids early, as infants (I’m serious!) and train them deliberately, very, very carefully, like hens nursing little chicks, until they can stand under the garbage in this counry and soar despite it. I don’t think that is happening at the moment, and so the applications are very low.</p>

<p>
[quote]
On another point - I think you asked about outreach programs - I posted a link earlier in this thread outlining what I think is an extensive outreach program by UCLA. It also has the stats.

[/quote]
Hey, thanks. I’ll look into these UCs. We are on the east coast, and so never really paid much attention to them.</p>

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<p>Here are some links that you might find interesting. Though they're about UVA (which is 8.5% black) and its high African-American graduation rate, they highlight some interesting points (i.e. “America’s large state universities educate three-fourths of all African-American college students.”). They also mention some ideas that UCLA could incorporate for its black recruitment efforts, like partnering with historically black colleges, creating a strong black mentorship program, and improving financial aid to where low-income kids get full-rides, which is the case at UVA. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.virginia.edu/topnews/releases2006/20060502VaNebAlliance.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.virginia.edu/topnews/releases2006/20060502VaNebAlliance.html&lt;/a>
<a href="http://www.virginia.edu/topnews/releases2006/20060316JBHEStudy.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.virginia.edu/topnews/releases2006/20060316JBHEStudy.html&lt;/a>
<a href="http://www.virginia.edu/topnews/releases2006/20060118JBHE_Grad_Rates.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.virginia.edu/topnews/releases2006/20060118JBHE_Grad_Rates.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>"But why should that damn my girlfriend to a life of being told she's not American enough?"</p>

<p>I don't think it should. I think we are way too worried about immigration. Just like we've always been.</p>

<p>I read some amusing stories by the way, in the wake of the 100th anniversary of the San Francisco quake. Apparently all the records were lost so many Chinese took the opportunity to claim they were born here. :-) I don't think this illegal immigration hurt SF hundred years ago.</p>

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<p>". And I gotta tell ya, any black family that does this is gonna need a lot of guts and weirdness to try it. "</p>

<p>Can you be more specific about what radical and weird things a black family needs to do? </p>

<p>Moving to my diverse neighborhood (I think at the moment about 40% black, 40% white and 20% Hispanic) doesn't seem that radical and weird to me. Though I realize neighborhoods like this aren't that common in the US.</p>

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<p>ok.. people are questioning if ucla should recruit based on race... recruiting based on race is a lot different from admitting based on race. You have to realize that the top 25% of black students are spread all around the US and I dont have numbers to back this up... but im pretty sure that a large concentration of the would be found in the eastern US. I dont know what you all think, but I think that warrants some out of state recruiting</p>

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<p>For those who have brought up the midwest and the East Coast, it would not be policy for UC to spend a lot of effort in those areas (as DRab says), even though no doubt there are some fine students in those areas -- Drosselmeier's obviously included. (We know his are headed for privates, actually.) It would be policy for UC to exert its efforts in-state.</p>

<p>Globalist, even without clicking on those links, doubtless those are fine efforts. I can predict, though, that VA has had, will have, enormously better results with such efforts, for UVA, than will be true in-state for UC. The reason is the gigantic difference in the 2 public school systems, overall: their populations, their efficiency, their regulations, their politics, their products. Most K-12 CA African-American public school students are not being served adequately by their schools, unless they are living in, or allowed to transfer into, high-rent school districts. In many of the schools, the majority population consists of immigrant children of a variety of nationalities & languages. Those schools are overwhelmed merely trying to manage this conglomerate -- trying to, being regulated to, serve "all," when i.m.o, few, in those cases, are being served -- including the majority segments.</p>

<p>Recognizing this reality, Afr-Am'n families have begun to take matters into their own hands & are actually in many cases segmenting themselves deliberately apart from this system, forming their own charter schools targeted to address educational deficiencies in their own populations. These schools also have college admissions in mind, having configured their curriculum for that & their assumptions for that. These are by no means term schools or vocational schools. An important difference to note between a State site school and an independent charter school, is that the latter <em>requires</em> parental commitment, involvement. (They, along with the teachers, are the "regulators.") Drosselmeier is merely a more extreme ;) example of how parental involvement affects student success; the charter model also proves this. </p>

<p>Entering an extremely low-performing CA site school (populated by students whose parents are not prepared & not mandated to partner actively, concretely, with the goals of the school) -- with the hope of recruiting UC students, will tend to have a very poor rate of success.</p>

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<p>A startling statistic regarding UVA - </p>

<ul>
<li><p>UVA is roughly 10% black but the state of Virginia is roughly 20% black. This means that the demographics of UVA black students is only half of the demographics of blacks in the state. </p></li>
<li><p>UCLA is roughly 3% black but the state of California is roughly 6.8% black. This means that the demographics of UCLA black students is only half of the demographics of blacks in the state. </p></li>
</ul>

<p>So, it seems that UVA is achieving about the same results in black students as UCLA. </p>

<p>I suspect similar results would be found at many other colleges. One can't ignore demographics when studying this issue. The fact is that the certain parts of the country contain much higher percentages of certain ethnic groups than others (higher % of blacks in the east/southeast, higher % of hispanics/Asians in the west).</p>

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<p>Go back to post #73 and see the fundamental problem in finding enough qualified applicants to push the numbers of admitted students into statistical significance at any one college. </p>

<p>Read that article against the backdrop of the squeezing of education budgets in CA in the years since Proposition 13. </p>

<p>Outreach programs can only work if kids stay in high school, graduate, and can take advantage of the efforts being made.</p>

196

<p>"I don't believe that UCLA is doing nothing for recruitment."</p>

<p>Well, actually, in my experience, UCLA's outreach program is mostly smoke and mirrors.<br>
At the end of his sophomore year, S1 received a letter from UCLA saying that because his strong academic record, he was invited to join an outreach program specifically geared to recruiting low-income students to their school. (there was no mention of race, but my son is a URM).<br>
We were invited to attend an orientation session at Venice High, where, with about 200 other students and parents, several officials explained what opportuities would be available for participants in the program: free SAT/ACT prep; regular counseling sessions with college admission specialists from UCLA; a summer academic camp, etc.<br>
It all sounded wonderful.
So what happened?
So now, it's late fall of junior year, and my son hasn't heard a word from UCLA. I call the contact number, and am told, well, we really haven't gotten off the ground yet, or some such nonsense.<br>
A few months later, March or April of S1's junior year, I call again about the outreach program. And again, the response was, well, we have a lot of students to deal with, or something like that . . . I don't remember exactly what the excuse was.<br>
But surprise, within a few days S1 got an invitation to attend an all-day SAT/ACT prep course. Fine, at least something is finally happening.
So S1, and about a dozen students dutifully arrived at about 8:00 A.M., to take a bus to the UCLA campus.<br>
8:15, no bus
8:30, no bus
8:45, no bus
At 9:00, I gathered up as many students as I could in my mini-van and took them to the campus.<br>
No explanation why the bus never arrived.
So much for outreach.
A couple of days later I called once again to find out what could be expected for the summer. (remember, the summer academic camp?)<br>
Of course, they hadn't finalized the program, but assured me they would be in contact.<br>
By this time, it's late May.<br>
I couldn't wait any longer, and sent my son to another academic summer camp.<br>
Never heard from UCLA again.<br>
Not surprisingly, my son didn't bother to apply to UCLA.
He was accepted at Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz (in the honors program).
He choose instead to go to an Ivy.</p>

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<p>kuba:</p>

<p>It certainly sounds like some administrative folks at UCLA messed up and UCLA management should chase this down and fix the problem. I don't know if you pursued this through the management of UCLA but it sounds as if UCLA and the community could benefit if you could get your experiences to the right people at UCLA. Believe me, dealing with administrators at many of the colleges can be frustrating (ala the government). </p>

<p>Regardless of the outreach, it sounds as if your son would have been admitted to UCLA since he was accepted at Berkeley and some Ivies. Also, regardless of outreach, since he was accepted to an Ivy, and especially if he received good financial aid, wouldn't he have turned down UCLA in favor of the Ivy anyway? </p>

<p>btw - Congratulations to your son and you - your son did very well.</p>

198

<p>Whoa UCSD<em>UCLA</em>Dad & Jazzymom. Calm down. I’m simply giving examples of UVA’s black recruitment and retention programs that are working, which UCLA and UCSD could learn from. You can choose to learn from these examples or ignore them. </p>

<p>Yeah, California may only be 6.8% black, but its black population is double that of Virginia’s. (CA: 2.3 million / VA: 1.3 million). Noting that statistic and the fact that UCLA’s undergraduate population (24,900) is nearly double that of UVA’s, UCLA could do more to attract black students than just 96 incoming students. Here’s an interesting article from the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.jbhe.com/news_views/49_blackenrollment_publicivies.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.jbhe.com/news_views/49_blackenrollment_publicivies.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>You know, it comes down to commitment. How committed are UC schools to reaching out to URMs? And then, after you recruit them, how committed are UC schools to making sure their African-American students succeed in college and actually graduate? </p>

<p>UVA begins recruiting strong African-American students in junior high school, so that when they start applying for colleges, UVA is on the top of their minds. Once at UVA, black students are then nurtured so that they know they can succeed. This is done though a tight-knit mentorship program and comprehensive financial aid that helps both in-state and out-of-state low-income students. (There's a reason why UVA has the highest graduation rate of African-American students - and all students for that matter - among all public schools in the country.) Here are black student vignettes that show why they chose to attend and stay at UVA.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.virginia.edu/topnews/releases2006/20060316StudentVignettes.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.virginia.edu/topnews/releases2006/20060316StudentVignettes.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>UC schools have some the brightest minds in the country. Perhaps they should work to find ways to improve California public schools that are underperforming, which I’m sure are serving a large percentage of URMs. This would only help the UC’s in the long run. Here’s a program at UVA sponsored by the Darden Business School and the Curry School of Education whose mission it is to help failing schools in Virginia. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.darden.virginia.edu/VDOE/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.darden.virginia.edu/VDOE/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Look, I’m not criticizing the UC schools. I’m trying to show you guys that change can happen. I really suggest you check out the links above as well as the ones from my previous post (#189). </p>

<p>You can either stare at a problem and lament its existence or you can do something about it.</p>

199

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<p>True, but the original article shows that UCLA isn't exactly setting the world on fire attracting Latinos either. 659 will be enrolling, down from last year and comprising 13.6% of the incoming class. This in a state that is at least 35% Latino.</p>

<p>So using the demographic argument to excuse the number of blacks enrolling at UCLA creates big questions about Latinos. Based on demographics they should have over twice the number of Latinos enrolling.</p>

200

<p>
[quote]
Can you be more specific about what radical and weird things a black family needs to do? Moving to my diverse neighborhood…doesn't seem that radical and weird to me. Though I realize neighborhoods like this aren't that common in the US.

[/quote]
Yeah. Well, yeah, moving can be very radical. You are talking about uprooting from one place, taking all your stuff with you to a better place. If you are doing this for the precise reason of better protecting and nurturing your kids (and not at all to keep up with the Joneses), well, that can be pretty radical depending on your circumstances. The issue really is one of priority and focus. Of all the things in your life (not yours in particular, but you know…), what is the very most important? And does your effort in life reflect the truth of your answer? Even this can have a dramatic effect on a child’s well-being and academic performance. Few kids will fail a mom who has dedicated herself and thrown away her own pleasure to support his academic success. Most black kids will eat nails to make it happen.</p>

<p>We are all living in different situations that might require fairly different solutions to avoid the same problem. A black teen, pregnant, and living in Anacostia, DC, would be very radical were she to plot and then successfully implement a plan to move into your neighborhood to provide a better environment in which to rear her soon-to-be-born kid. This assumes, of course, that the people in your community are generally of the sort to send the message to all the neighborhood’s kids that they matter and are equally special. Most neighborhoods are not so nurturing.</p>

<p>What if the teen’s prospective neighborhood is really not that diverse, but in fact consists of three virulently hostile racial camps of people, all of whom have tacitly agreed to stay within their respective boundaries? Well, in that case, the same message that I think destroys black kids would possibly be transmitted to that teen’s child, were she to move into that neighborhood. Combined with the horrid images of blacks in film and on television that we’ve all seen, this mom’s child would easily get the message that she is of a lower rank of people and that the entire world knows it. Instantly, the kid acquires a crushing weight, and I don’t think it is generally possible for her to ever get out from under it. It would be easier for her to just let the weight crush her self-respect so that she can comfortably join the rabble, treating her circumstances as “our thang” in view of which you “gotta be real” to understand. So, given this sort of prospective neighborhood, the teen mom would require some other radical plan to protect her child.</p>

<p>Perhaps she could follow the example of a really wonderful black mom I met right here on CC. This woman pretty much quit her job to lobby the DC public school system to get better resources for her kid. It was a full time job for her to do this, mind you, and so she just could not hold down a full time job to pay her bills and then work the full time job of fighting the DC school system. You can bet this woman suffered like nothing many of us can imagine because her focus was almost wholly on her kid’s future, and not on vacations, or fancy clothes, or on home movie systems or anything like this. Ultimately, she made arrangements to send her kid to a Montessori school wherein the kid got the nourishment she needed. That kid eventually shot to the top of her class and will be at Yale this Fall. Very radical. </p>

<p>In my own case, I just thought it necessary to take the whole thing into my own hands and shield my kids over a long period of years, speaking encouragement and wisdom directly from me into them before the rest of the world could warp them into something less than what they really are. Plenty of people have criticized me, and for very many years. My critics were relatives, friends, neighbors, even people who don’t know me. No problem. I just remind myself of the churches full of black and brown men and women, on their knees, with their black children, all bowing down to a blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesus, seeing how they all take this foolishness for granted, and how the same people who criticize me are so locked into this foolishness that they just can’t really imagine anything different, certainly not a church full of whites all bowing down to a black Jesus.</p>

<p>I am convinced that this racist reality that we are surrounded by has a fascinatingly horrific effect on the minds of black kids who, like the rest of us, can’t imagine anything different either. These poor kids are so blinded by it that they ridicule other blacks who elect to strike out in some new intellectual direction. It pushes black kids into deep, cavernous pockets of inferiority within their own heads. And America is just brimming with this sort of nonsense. It is everywhere, and all through everything. Take a look at any old, historically great work of European art where people of differing races are present. The white guy’s head is almost ALWAYS higher, and the light on him is almost always just a wee bit brighter. It is in our advertisements, where the white guy is usually dominant, front and center. We are so saturated in racism, that we do not even know how pervasive and pernicious it is, how devastating it can be to our spirits, to our school performances, to our sense of belonging. Oftentimes, we don’t even know where it is. We just feel it, mostly subconsciously, and all the livelong day.</p>

<p>So, I think you gotta do something, anything, to protect your kids against it. I am convinced it is an evil thing in our culture that is after our kids. It comes especially after black kids, and it tends to get them, even the wealthy ones, very early in their lives. Once it attaches to them, it worms itself through their scalps, into their skulls, deep down into their brains, ultimately to end up in their hearts and souls where it eats away at everything there that is good. I am saying black parents need to be aware of this evil and take radical steps to block it in its tracks before it gets anywhere near our homes. There are several ways to block it, and we need to be creating as many others as possible so that families have great enough variety of solutions to find at least one to fit their needs.</p>