Hello everyone! I am a junior in high school from Florida and I am a little stressed about what schools I should be focused on applying to. For starters, I am Colombian, therefore I am of Hispanic ethnicity. I know that a lot of the top-notch schools in the country are predominantly white institutions, such as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke University, University of Chicago, etc. I plan on applying to schools in-state as well as out-of state. However, to be completely honest, I am a bit intimidated by being away from home in an environment that may not welcome me. I know it sounds silly, but I have been around minorities my whole life, and it’s a little scary to be in a large school with little ethnic diversity. I’ve read some negative school reviews in regards to ethnic diversity, and I definitely don’t want to feel like all eyes are frowning upon me when I do attend college. Now, I would like to receive a liberal arts style education, majoring in English. I want to attend a school where I can work in a close knit community with my classmates and professors, because I am coming from a very small high school (my graduating class will be around 25 students), but, I do long for the full college experience of roaming a big campus and feeling the adrenaline rush of attending college sports games. I want the best of both worlds, and if I can find a college that offers both plus support and acceptance for minority students, it would be the perfect fit. I do want to step outside of my comfort zone and meet people of different backgrounds, yet I don’t want to be discriminated in any sort of way. I would really like some advice for any schools that offer what I am looking for, as well as for overcoming the fear of being an outcast in a PWI (predominantly white institution).
You need to include actual information about your stats and education. Cart and horse.
I think it’s great that you have strong ideas about what’s important to you in selecting a college. But I agree that it will be hard for us to recommend schools without knowing a little about your grades and test scores.
Not all highly selective colleges are majority white. Percentage of domestic undergraduates self-identified as white:
49.8% Harvard
49.0% Brown
48.4% Bryn Mawr
48.0% Pomona
47.7% Emory
47.1% Cornell
46.7% Swarthmore
46.2% Amherst
45.3% CMU
44.6% NYU
44.6% Rice
43.4% USC
41.0% MIT
40.3% Stanford
38.4% Columbia
33.4% Caltech
24.9% Berkeley
A few others are barely over 50% white, like Chicago, UPenn, and Yale.
Several of them are over 10% Latino; Columbia, MIT, Rice, Stanford, Swarthmore, and USC are over 15% Latino.
For comparison, University of Florida is 59.1% white and 19.2% Latino.
If you give your academic qualifications and your cost constraints, people on the forums can better suggest colleges for you.
Why are you assuming that you’ll be discriminated against at a predominantly white school?
In a recent edition of “Foreign Affairs” magazine there was an article about a study done in South Africa to determine how racist the different ethnic groups were. All groups had some levels of racism, but whites were found to be least racist, blacks were most racist, and groups like Indians, Chinese and mixed were in the middle. I suspect it’s the same in the US, except I’d add Latino/Hispanic to that middle group.
From what I’ve seen, the people who will most likely be discriminated against on the basis of their ethnicity are the ones who self-segregate and expect some kind of entitlement on the basis of their ethnicity. They won’t be discriminated against because of their ethnicity, but because it’s tiresome dealing with people with attitudes.
@simba9 if you are not a POC then it is not your place to make a comment about the experience POCs will have in college! You cannot assume what someone’s experience will be like based on data you saw in one study (which we have no idea of the credibility of) that wasn’t even done in the US. The US and South Africa have extremely different history and there are plenty other factors that could differentiate them anyway. And there are enough cases of racism on and around American college campuses (Oklahoma state?!) to disprove your claim tenfold. Your idea that the only people who experience racism are the ones who bring it on themselves is very racist and honestly just very ignorant about how systemic racism works. If anything, you’ve given OP an example of the type of casual ignorant racism she could experience at a predominantly-white institution.
I completely forgot about adding information about myself! As for extracurricular activities, I am the President and Director of Community Service for the Interact Club of Rotary International at my high school and a school year volunteer for a local nonprofit organization (an office intern for them, as well). I also attended a summer journalism workshop at a local university last summer and this summer I am a teaching intern for the local nonprofit I mentioned earlier (paid). I’m also an Ambassador for the National Society of High School Scholars. As for my GPA, test scores, etc., I have a 3.8 unweighted GPA and a 4.6 weighted GPA. I earned an 1160 for critical reading and math on the SAT for a 1690 total if you add writing. I took the ACT as well, but don’t have my scores yet. I took the SAT for a second time, as well, but don’t have my scores yet. I hope this information helps.
@lalaemma, I’m genuinely trying to discuss this because I think it’s an interesting topic. I knew that I’d get people ranting at me, but I still think I’m closer to the truth than you are.
At what point did I say there was no racism and that people who experience it always bring it on themselves? I said that I believed everyone had some racism in them, and that much of the discrimination (not racism) on campuses will be caused by people who annoy others by making a big deal of their ethnicity. You’re an example of why it’s so hard to discuss matters like this. People get emotional and start throwing personal insults at people they’ve never met, instead of discussing things rationally.
My view can be summed up basically as whites tend to underestimate racism, while minorities tend to overestimate it. It sounded to me like CoolasIce might be overestimating what kinds of problems (s)he’d experience in college. And while it’s not a big deal, I was a mildly offended at the assumption that going to a predominantly white institution meant there would be racism. That assumption itself is a little bit racist.
While there are boneheads everywhere, including the white kids at Oklahoma State, I’d like to remind you that the black actress on Empire (can’t remember her name) recently accused a couple of police departments in Southern California, including the USC police department, of stopping and mistreating her son because he was black. Video evidence showed that wasn’t the case, and she had the decency to apologize. But it was an example of a minority seeing racism where none existed.
OK, so bottom line - I don’t think CoolasIce had anything to worry about by going to the schools mentioned.
Well, you have an SAT of 1690, I am not sure highly selective colleges as listed in the thread are relevant anyway. The first thing is to find schools that suit your academic and financial profile. Start local/instate. Look up common data sets. Understand net price calculators.
Make sure that you talk to your parents about what they will contribute. Do not leave the discussion about costs until April of your senior year. You can look at all of the anguished posts on these forums in April from students and parents who found that the colleges are all too expensive, or that they are disagreeing now because they never had an honest talk about college costs before applications were made.
Thank you so much, everyone, for all of your wonderful contributions. This advice was really helpful and I think that cost is an important factor that I should discuss before even thinking about schools that may be out of my reach. I think that’s a great idea to begin working on. After I have an estimate in mind of my financial situation, it will definitely be easier for me to select colleges to apply to.
I address this only because I think it’s relevant to the conversation about going to a PWI as a person of color. I’m an African American woman myself. People get emotional about discussing issues of race and racism because they are inherently emotional issues that affect our every day lives, the way that we are perceived by people, our careers, our jobs…and so on. There’s a wealth of scientific evidence for that. Emotionality is not mutually exclusive with rationality, though - it’s possible to be emotional and rational simultaneously!
There is scientific evidence to support your assertion that racial/ethnic minorities do tend to expect racism where there is none and that the expectation of racism stresses us out and actually makes it more likely that it will occur. However, the reason that we do that is 1) racism does actually exist and 2) the same reason that any kind of person might have a phobia of airplanes or “prepare for the worst.” Humans are trained to be hyper vigilant in situations that are potentially threatening to them. Taraji P. Henson’s suspicions were borne, in part, of a long history of police discrimination against young black men. It’s unfortunate, but often we attend to those cues because our very lives depend on it (as has been reflected in recent news reports, to a tragic extent) - and sometimes we react in inaccurate ways.
Also, I’m not really sure how I can annoy others by drawing attention to my ethnicity…? It’s a part of me, it exists, it’s highly visible 100% of the time. I can’t really help that, lol! That’s not discrimination.
With that said, @Coolascle ^ I actually pointed out the above because it is a big part of being a person of color in an environment in which you are not the majority. I went to an HBCU (Spelman) for undergrad and went to a PWI (Columbia) for grad school, and am currently at an even more PWI (Penn State) as a postdoc. I will admit that I did go in expecting all sorts of crazy racist/racial experiences. People of color who live in predominantly minority areas do carry a lot of baggage with us. The expectation - the stereotype threat, if you would - stressed me out WAY more than any actual events did. In general, I had a very positive experience. My race was not ignored, but also not treated as inferior - my differences were acknowledged in positive ways and I had a lot of interesting cultural exchanges with people from backgrounds different from mine. But mostly, the vast majority of my exchanges were NOT cultural - they were just normal. I just have friends, and we happen to come from different racial/ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. I observed this amongst the undergrads at Columbia. I won’t say that awkward cultural/racial/ethnic moments didn’t happen (they definitely did. All the time!) but the students muddled through and figured it out.
That’s all you really can do. Especially as you ascend the academic ladder, there will be fewer and fewer people of color and you’ll have to learn how to wend your way through all kinds of different environments. Don’t be afraid. While there are moments when you feel like a little bit of an outsider, it goes away gradually over time, and I feel very very comfortable in my town and at my workplace.
The other benefit is that you get to meet people from all kinds of diverse backgrounds with lots of different experiences, and it’s awesome. I have friends from all kinds of ethnic groups and socioeconomic statuses right now - some very very wealthy. I had never had that experience before, and it’s really, really great to stretch yourself and get to know people who are very different from you. You grow and expand in a way that you don’t when you only live around people like you.
@juillet Thank you so much for the positive message! I really needed that inspiration. Although, I have another question. I have considered attending an HBCU, specifically Morehouse College, but I don’t want to miss out on going to a big campus and participating in all of the extracurricular activities. As an undergrad at Spelman, did you have these kinds of opportunities? I definitely want to experience interaction with people of different backgrounds from my own, but I just want to know what your experience at Spelman was like and how it prepared you for graduate and doctorate school. What compelled you to attend?
@CoolasIce Please don’t succumb to fear, especially irrational fear. Please don’t self-segregate yourself. Ironically, the same political forces that insist on plurality and inclusion cultivate these fears in minority communities.
Don’t fall for it. Go out in the world and do what you want without this fear. If you don’t you will regret it the rest of your life.
As of right now, Duke, Chicago, and UNC are out of reach with your SAT score. It’s barely above average. For those schools, ideally you want CR+M to be at the very least 1300.
@simba9 I still think you’re wrong, primarily because you keep misusing the word racism. Racism is discrimination against a person on the basis of their race that is backed up by systemic oppression. So, while you can discriminate against a white person, white people don’t suffer from racism by definition, at least not in the US, where white people are the privileged racial group. There is no systemic oppression against white people in this country.
It’s not hard to discuss matters like this when you use proper terminology and discuss things respectfully. If you start telling a POC what her experience is or will be, even though as a white person you never have and never will experience what it’s like to be a POC, people are going to call you out. (For the record, I’m white.)
I did retake the SAT, so I’m hoping I scored higher this time around. I’m continuing to research the different universities that would be a good fit for me. I am going to apply to University of Florida for sure, because I think it would be a good fit for me. Just to be clear, I am not afraid of going to a school where I am a minority. I am not terrified about racism, but I was just a little concerned.
This definition of “racism” is sometimes used by left-leaning activists to claim that “only a white person can be racist” and such. But it is at odds with the more generally used definition of “racism”; a definition that involves systematic oppression would usually be for a term like “institutionalized racism” or some such.
@ucbalumnus I never said only white people can be racist, only that white people in the United States can’t suffer from racism (but they can still experience discrimination). If you want to disagree with me then go ahead, but I am studying the subject, and I can say for certain that in most scholarly settings this is accepted definition.
Since you want to stay near home, you’ll have tons of options in Florida, both public and private, that have a high percentage of Hispanic students. Have you looked at FIU or FAU? Both have a lot of opportunities. Your scores aren’t high enough for bright futures now, but if you get them up, do you have the other requirements? Community service, foreign language? If you go to a private school, you’ll get $3000 from the state. Look at Flagler.