While a lack of faculty and staff can be revealing, I would not write off a school based on that without doing a bit more research. I know first hand that there can be other reasons for such low numbers. Location is often a MAJOR factor.
I am an African American female professor. When I was still in grad school I would attend various conferences for grad students every year. There were often reps from many Northeast SLAC in attendance handing out business cards and trying to get URM grad students to visit their school and apply for open positions. I remember privately laughing with other Black and Latino students that we would never consider some of these schools due to location. Although I am from MA, there was NO WAY I was heading to Vermont, Maine, NH, or upstate NY. We didn’t care if it was a top ten LAC or not. Students and their parents are not the only people that want diverse communities. My fellow URM grad students and I were not eager to live in an area with few POC. These schools still came to conferences every year in a sincere effort to recruit faculty of color, but we were not interested. Sometimes a college has a difficult time due to its location and the surrounding community. There is little they can do to overcome that.
Now of course, if the location is stellar then that is another matter…
(By the way, I have a D20 applying to schools now.)
I agree. Under the right circumstances, a lack of minority professors may not be due to a lack of effort.
I also agree that, because of location alone, there are several otherwise appropriate universities to which my son is not applying. That includes that deep NE corner. I would not want to put him in a region with only 1-3% A-A representation. It’s one thing if a school has only 3% blacks, but if the entire state has only 3% blacks, that would seem to be a bridge too far to cross.
I worked for a company back in the early 2000s that had offices all over the country. We held a meeting in our location for managers in other locations. The Vermont guy recruited me hard to relocate to his office. Even after the week-long meeting was over, he was relentless with calls and emails. He was offering more money and more responsibility, and Vermont look great, if cold. But I kept looking at the fact that it was 1% African-American. I couldn’t imagine what that would be like, so I couldn’t seriously imagine accepting the job. I’ve often been the only A-A male in a department, or even a company, but I wouldn’t want to be the only A-A male in the entire city.
@Sarrip , love your story! In so many circles, high school is just an extended admissions test for college, so after you have those acceptances, there’s a minimum of effort and engagement. Your D is obviously still very much in her experience.
@ProfSD and @EconPop , location is a challenging headwind, and I really appreciate your point. It’s easier to create a comfortable space for diverse students who spend most of 4 years on campus (and even that’s hard until it’s established to a point of reasonable size) than for faculty who have to live in the community, potentially raise children there, etc. So many of the rural LACs struggle with this, and it’s not for lack of trying.
My son is leaning toward Economics, with Accounting or Finance also under consideration. He is not mathy or techy enough to want to pursue CS or Engineering, but he enjoys math. And he isn’t in love with Literature and language to want to pursue English or one of the creative majors.
Once he learned about Econ, he felt it was the perfect fit for him. Just enough math and just enough language without too much of either, and a lot of critical thinking. He can’t wait to get into it in college.
He’s not certain about post college plans. Most likely grad school, but he doesn’t know if he’ll jump directly into consulting or pursue more education to perhaps become a professor, or what.
For parents who have DM’d me regarding the black student graduation rate links I provided earlier here are the approved unbroken links below. Again, there are very few outcome-derived indicators that are as accurate to predicting black student pre and post-graduation success as graduation rates as confirmed by decades of research by JBHE.
Given what is taking place at Syracuse University currently (google search), What are the top 3 considerations that you as parents and your african-american student will use to select the College they will ultimately attend. Considerations that are perhaps unique to the Black experience/perspective as indicated by this CC thread.
In order of preference.
DD: student-body culture, strength of career services program, starting salary for major
DD Parents: safety, amount of financial aid/tuition discounting, strength of undergrad teaching/professor access
Culture
2.Access to Opportunities (Research, internships, study abroad, networking, etc.)
Location and school type (Small to Medium sized Urban campuses that have some separation from those cities, but also have a vibrant black population.
I pretty much only have 1 line that probably gives more than 3 components.
I am looking for FIT from a cultural, academic, social, and financial perspective that maximizes future opportunities and will support my son's super sized ambitions.
Our choice for schools honestly does not include the black experience as a top consideration but based on the acceptances it will be considered.
WDD17: 1. Location, small - medium campus. Having gone to a prep school that is not walking distance to much she is seeking out a school where she will have the ability and access to off campus recreation, shopping, restaurants. Where she can simply walk if she needs a break from the academic setting. 2. a school which has the necessary student support services in place such as mental health, tutoring, peer mentors etc which enable the students to be successful even amongst their struggles. 3. A school which has a great computer science/engineering program where there is access to ECs such as dance, theater, sustainability to ensure that after she works hard, she has an outlet.
Parent: Fit - a place where she can be happy and find her people. 2. Financially feasible and loan free. 3. Location - close enough to drive within 5 hours but preferably closer.
Thoughts - Why would a parent apply ED to a college with very low retention and SAT/ACT scores when their child is currently in an excellent school district and is an honor student. I saw this recently with someone and the only thing that I could think of was cost/merit/scholarship. What would make you consider one of these schools as a choice for your child other than cost. Just wondering if there are considerations that I am not considering.
My son hasn’t applied ED anywhere, but he applied to one particular school with very mediocre retention rates where his ACT score is more than 10 points above the 75 percentile ACT score at the school. He applied due to the family legacy as his Great Grandfather taught at this school and many other family members (Great-Grandmother, Grandparents, uncle, etc.) are alums. My son has had some good times on that particular campus. It is not at the top of the list, but he wanted to pay homage to a school that has shaped his family legacy. I could see that type of familial legacy having the effect of getting a student to apply ED to a school that normally would not be in the conversation from statistical perspective.
This is more common than you might think among certain ethnic groups for the following reasons.
Higher probability of getting into an honors program where students live and go to classes together, and all classes are no larger than 20-25 students, all classes taught by professors not professor assistants, the list of perks go on....on...on
Student gets substantial merit/scholarship aid
Student graduates with high GPA near the top of his/her class which may consists of 500 or more students. Therefore giving student competitive advantage for attending top tier graduate school (hence the mantra it is not where you start but where you finish on your resume).
Additional strategy…
Go to low retention college for 2-years where tuition is low, complete core requirements and then transfer to a high retention 4-year school as a junior. Major savings of 40-120k in tuition costs.
Many of these schools also have a 80% plus ED acceptance rate. Keep in mind if you can’t afford ED tuition you are not obligated to attend. Which you will know by the RD deadline dates. So unless the school is needs blind and meets 100% of need you can pretty much pull out of an ED school acceptance, that is the reality.
I noticed that in some past years, this thread for some reason dropped off just prior to results/acceptances etc. I hope that this does not happen this time. I hope that we can celebrate and support each other as other groups do during this time. With that being said, other than what we have already discussed, has anyone else received any news yet (good or not so good) recently. My daughter has heard about others receiving decisions already and she is struggling with the fact that she has not heard anything yet. Patience… We did not apply ED anywhere but did apply EA to several schools. Hopefully in the next few weeks we will hear from some of those schools. Good Luck everyone.
My son applied to some universities on that list. Not all were fits for my son, but some were. For any family that is not able to be full-pay, lists like that are great resources.
Also, after talking to universities in general, I was surprised to discover how many have unofficial limited full-need opportunities. Many schools may have a handful of scholarships that are need-based (not fully merit-based) that are awarded yearly and meet most or full need. Such schools don’t advertise as full-need schools, but they help when they can.
One of my son’s top choices brought us in for a visit where they presented a half-dozen students who were on full-ride need-based scholarships. These are not guaranteed to anyone, but it seems that if students display interest, voice the need, and apply EA, it helps a lot. It never hurts to ask. After that, I asked a lot.
We’re still waiting to know if our daughter has been accepted.
My daughter is pretty calm, I’m a bit anxious about it.
I’ll update with the news.
My daughter is waiting from one ED and three EA.
Good luck to everyone!
D20 is waiting on one ED and two EA. Not expecting to hear from one EA until end of December, but other EA and ED should be next week. She is very anxious about the ED one. She even asked me if she is not accepted, can she skip school the next day to recover from her devastation! LOL. I privately go back and forth between being optimistic and thinking she has a solid chance, and then thinking it just won’t happen because it’s a high reach. She absolutely loves the school and it was a clear favorite (hence ED). Fortunately, most of her other applications are completed and ready to go if she is rejected or deferred. We tried to have her complete as much as possible by December 1 because I knew she would have a tough time pulling it together if she didn’t get in to her top choice.
