<p>This question may be too nuanced for most to answer, but we are an upper income suburban black family with a son who is begging us to let him attend boarding school. We live in a liberal, fairly well-to-do New Jersey suburb that has many black families like us, along with a liberal white population that allows these kids to be friends across racial lines. I went to a southern BS in the early 80s that only recruited black students through scholarship programs like ABC. Those were great programs and I continue to send donations to ABC and my school, but we were never accepted by white students because we were seen as "inner city scholarship blacks," and there were no middle income blacks to bridge the gap. Given what i just shared, are there certain top ten boarding schools that are more likely to have a student population that actually mixes and has African American students of all economic backgrounds? Or is the black population at these schools the same as when i went in early 80s? Are certain schools better at getting black and white students to interact socially? I see Asian and white students mixing, but almost no black and white mixing outside of sport activities.</p>
<p>You should probably ask this on the prep school forum. At my prep school a million years ago, the black students were of the same middle class background as most of us. There was a fairly sizable portion of really wealthy white students which I barely realized at the time (we either wore uniforms or jeans), but has become much clearer to me as an alumna. Events are often at exclusive clubs or in people’s amazing Fifth Avenue apartments in NY. It’s fun if you aren’t the type to be intimidated by wealth. If you have read the book Black Ice, I think that describes the atmosphere pretty well. White students did our best to welcome black students and be inclusive, but I think sometimes we just didn’t have a clue. I know in my neighborhood many middle class black parents send their kids to local prep schools instead of to the local high school, because they are worried about the self-segregation that sometimes occurs at the high school.</p>
<p>You might get more responses if you post this in the Prep school area. Did you check websites of schools you’re interested in? You might be able to get demographics, but probably not answers to the more complex questions.</p>