African-Americans at Princeton

Colleges and Universities A-Z Princeton University
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<p>What effects does the social atmosphere of Princeton have on African-Americans in the student body? What impact do affirmative action policies (and the perceptions they inspire) have on African-Americans? Is there an atmosphere of marginalization or voluntary separation between races? And if boundaries do exist, how difficult is it to transcend them?</p>

<p>I ask these questions as a high-achieving African-American (2350+ SAT, 4.0 GPA, top of my class) from a kind-of-disadvantaged background who has always been able to interact with other racial groups freely and frequently without having to prove his intelligence. I have also heard a great deal about how blacks at top schools largely keep to themselves. I'm deeply afraid of being excluded from the intellectual or social community because of false perceptions. Should this be a concern?</p>

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<p>Collegebound,</p>

<p>FWIW (and it’s not worth much), my son and I visited both Penn and Princeton last spring. We’re from So. Cal. which is racially very diverse and my son (Puerto Rican with beautiful light brown skin) is used to interacting with people of many races without giving it much thought.</p>

<p>There definitely is a different feel at the Ivies than So Cal. However, I observed that people were more integrated at Princeton than at Penn. This was only a day’s worth of walking around at each school, so my experience would hardly qualify me as an expert. </p>

<p>My son found both campuses to be lovely and wonderful. I think you can do some searching on CC to find threads about AA students at Ivy Leagues.</p>

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<p>“I have also heard a great deal about how blacks at top schools largely keep to themselves.” My experience at another HYP says this wasn’t so, in general. Sure as people progressed, some joined frats and sororities – but in general, the student body is small enough and cohesive enough where it would be pretty difficult for some group to self segregate themselves too much.</p>

<p>Congrats on your test scores, BTW</p>

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<p>OK, so I’m a half-white/half-Chinese Princeton student, so I can’t say a lot, but:</p>

<p>1) I have never heard anyone make a comment / suggest that they perceive someone differently due to affirmative action policies. Mind you, I HAVE heard such comments in relation to myself from people at home. (Said people are apparently not aware that being Asian doesn’t exactly count as an “minority” in the Ivies.) I have heard people make comments about athletes of all races, because athlete admits here have demonstrably lower GPAs. Meh.</p>

<p>People here tend to assume that if you got into Princeton, you’re smart, and they leave it at that. That attitude–that assumption–is one of the things I like best about this place. I know it’s not the same thing, but for example: sometimes in a geeky environment I feel very aware of being female in a way that makes me feel like I need to prove something; that doesn’t happen to me here. (I’m a COS major.)</p>

<p>2) Self-segregation: honestly, it happens sometimes. I think it happens everywhere. It happened in my high school, too. But…I don’t know why. I would like to think that at Princeton it’s not because of any hostile attitudes, exclusion, etc, since I’ve never seen evidence of such things here. As a white kid I’m not really entitled to comment, though. I see self-segregation happening more amongst Asians than any other group, honestly. I think it’s caused largely by a tendency to associate with similar people. But I have friends of all races here, so…I don’t think it’s a huge issue?</p>

<p>At Princeton, I’ve seen self-segregation manifest mainly in 1) ethnically/racially-divided student groups (aka the “Asian Christian group”), which I don’t think is a bad thing, and 2) sometimes people have more friends of their own race than friends of other races, which is also not necessarily a bad thing. I haven’t seen any dramatic divides amongst the student body.</p>

<p>At any rate, I really don’t think you should have to worry about exclusion, and I’d advise you not to stress about it, but I’m no expert on the topic. You’d be best served by asking an African-American Princetonian, I guess.</p>