Hi everyone!
My junior year of high school has been a mess. As a Colorado resident, the only standardized testing I’ve taken so far is the ACT. My PSAT was canceled because of snow and the SAT was canceled because of COVID-19 complications. As a black female student, I need to be aware of how inclusive certain colleges are. Do you guys have any suggestions that are a good fit for black students? I would like a work hard play hard atmosphere. I have a 3.9 UW/ 4.5 W GPA, a 30 ACT score, and solid ECs with a couple of leadership positions. My dream schools are Duke and Vanderbilt. But, I doubt that I would be accepted.
Thank you so much for your help!
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Others can help you find a better fit if you describe:
Your cost constraints.
Your intended or possible majors and post graduation goals.
Based on your general criteria and the qualities of your tentative schools of interest, look into the University of Richmond, as well as other schools that appear in this article: https://money.com/best-colleges-african-americans/.
@hewanyoseph23 , don’t underestimate yourself. Those are very high grades, and your ACT, although not super high, is very respectable. I don’t know for sure, but the lack of test scores could work in your favor, as a number of schools will make them optional next year because of COVID. With a 3.9 UW/4.5 W GPA, and being an African American female, you are going to get into some very good schools with good financial aid packages thrown your way. They will also want you for geographic diversity as you are not from either coast or a big population state like Illinois.
I would apply to Duke and Vandy. May want to look into some Ivies, if that’s your thing, like Penn and Dartmouth. Cast as wide of net as you can, because schools will very likely be chasing after you. Maybe smaller schools too, like Williams, Swarthmore, Claremont. And even some of the honors programs at bigger universities.
Only advice I would give to you, which I give to everyone, is don’t spend a fortune on undergrad or get into a lot of debt. Lots of kids make that mistake, chasing after big names. That’s harmful to your future.
Best of luck! You will do great!
Check out Rice University, too. Houston is an incredibly diverse city and the Rice community is very inclusive and welcoming.
Would you consider an HBCU? Howard University in DC is supposed to be a great school and I’ve heard good things about Spelman, too.
If you’re open to smaller LACs, you might like Oberlin. It is more diverse than most. It may have been the first LAC to admit Blacks and its president is an African American woman.
I’ve applied to a couple of merit scholarships. I hope I win. Even if I don’t win, I know my family is upper middle class so I expect nothing in financial aid. I don’t exactly know what major to apply for. I’m leaning towards Economics/Finance or Biochem/Neuroscience.
@sbdad12 Thank you so much for your encouragement! I’ve looked into some of the schools you’ve mentioned. They all seem like great institutions. My issue is that I don’t want my racial identity to conflict with my college experience. I’m scared that I won’t live an enjoyable college experience because of my racial background. Do you have a general idea of what the black community at a top tier school looks like?
@CaliMex Rice University visited my high school a few months ago. It seems like a great school. But, the heavy emphasis on engineering/computer science is not for me. Howard and Spelman are also schools I’ve looked into. Though I believe HBCUs are great and necessary, it’s not the place for me. Living in a black paradise for 4 years to then move out to a white/male-dominated field would cause culture shock.
Have you tried the net price calculator on the web site of each college of interest?
If it does say that you will get no financial aid, can you and your parents actually pay the list price, or will you have to choose a less expensive college or find merit scholarships (from the college or outside ones)?
Oberlin admitted African American students in 1835 (two years after its founding in 1833). However, Liberty Hall Academy, later Washington Academy and Washington College, and now Washington and Lee University, beat Oberlin by 40 years, admitting the first African American student to enter higher education in the US in 1795. However, by the time of Oberlin’s founding, LHA/WA/WC/W&L was firmly on the opposite site of Oberlin’s abolitionist leanings, being a slaveholder at that time. W&L admitted its second African American student in 1966, and had large Confederate flag displays until 2014.
@ucbalumnus It’s a bit complicated for my family. My parents don’t file their taxes together. When doing the EFC with my mom’s information, the Duke calculator estimated a contribution of $10,200 to $24,000 with a “best” value of $17,400. My Dad owns a dealership. I don’t know how that would play into my EFC. The Duke website told me to enter the income received from the business. That didn’t seem right to me. If my Dad’s business does not play a role in my EFC and my family is expected to pay within the given range, my parents would cooperate up to $12,000. I can hopefully finance the rest in merit scholarships.
My friend’s daughter is African American and goes to Dartmouth. Another friend’s daughter is Hispanic. Both love the school, but it’s not for everyone because it gets cold and is in a small town. The percentage of African Americans at Dartmouth is 6.6%. One of my best friends here in LA went to Penn and he’s African American. He absolutely loved the school, it’s warmer, and in a big city, Philly.
While being African American is a part of you, and an important one, don’t let it define you. This isn’t the 1950s, 60, or even 80s. Times have changed and I think nearly everyone your age is cool about acceptance of everyone…thankfully we have reached that point. Those that aren’t shouldn’t be your friends anyway.
If it is still really important, look for an African American sorority chapter like Alpha Phi Alpha or Zeta Phi Beta at the schools you want to attend. That would be a way of making sure you have people to fit in with. (I’m Jewish and I did that with a fraternity, but sometimes I wish that I had joined a fraternity that wasn’t nearly all Jewish). Part of being in college that makes it special is meeting different people than you, and getting to know them.
I think you are underselling yourself. Standardized test scores are truly not a huge factor here, especially not this year. You could do some prep on your own this summer and take another test in late summer, even if it’s online. However, you already have a very respectable score and you offer a great deal beyond any score. I love all the specific suggestions the earlier posters supplied and just wanted to encourage you to cast that net widely. One of my daughter’s close friends from high school just committed to Penn because of its emphasis on diversity. Check FGLI at UPenn’s website. Best of luck!
Duke requires both parents’ finances for financial aid, regardless of their marital status (so include both of their finances when you use Duke’s net price calculator). Vanderbilt is a rare good-financial-aid college that usually only requires the finances of the parent you live with if they are divorced (Chicago is another).
If your parents are divorced, see http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/2083835-faq-divorced-parents-financial-aid-and-net-price-calculators.html .
There are some great parent posters you should reach out to, that have gone through the search for their kids just this year. @Sarrip and @ChangeTheGame come to mind. Super knowledgeable.
There’s no one size fits all for African-American students these days. IMHO SES trumps everything. Kids from an inner-city environment are going to encounter different complications than someone from a mixed-race family who is self-identified as “upper-middle-class”. Frankly, the biggest predictor of your college racial experience is going to be your high school racial experience. Were you a model minority with lots of friends from all different backgrounds? Was your school segregated? Young people don’t just wake up one day and decide
What’s really going on?
Hey @hewanyoseph23. My family visited schools and talked to black students who attended schools around the country and some stood out from our research and visits. Even though both of my kids ended up choosing Howard University with full ride merit offers, my kids were very impressed by schools such as Duke, Vanderbilt, Emory, Rice, and Tulane.
The common denominator for most of those schools are that they have relatively large metropolitan areas that have vibrant African American communities with beautiful campuses and had the right combination of “work/life balance” and the inclusive/ collaborative environments that my kids were both looking for.
We also saw schools with amazing black student communities (Harvard, Princeton, Georgia Tech, and U Michigan come to mind) that were very supportive and protective of their members. It was very easy to reach out and talk to students at those schools who were willing to share their experiences.
Since your family will look to keep costs down, I will give special shout outs to Tulane and Emory who offer substantial merit aid to students and to HBCUs who made several very generous merit offers to my kids. Duke and Vanderbilt also offer merit aid, but you would need to be at the very top of your incoming class. I would also advise to cast a “wide net” when applying to college. Good luck with your search and make sure you apply to a few safety schools (from an admissions and financial standpoint).
Sometimes, they do just wake up and decide (My son did). Both of my kids grew up in the same middle class household with wildly different high school racial experiences. My daughter was that model minority with friends of all different backgrounds and several very close African American friends. My son has had very few friends and has never had a close African American friend. But my kids both chose the same HBCU for different reasons from a diverse high school (32% White, 26% Black, 21% Asian, 15% Hispanic, 5% mixed race) with very little “self segregation” and where students with my kids stats almost always choose top 50 USNWR schools.
@ChangeTheGame My high school is not as diverse as the one your kids went to. I believe it’s about 10% African American. I myself am technically mixed race. I wouldn’t say I’m a “model minority”. But, I do have friends of differing racial backgrounds. However, many of my friends are black. Many of my friends don’t attend my high school. We usually hangout on the weekends only.
@circuitrider My high school was relatively segregated. In many AP/honors classes, I was one of few minority students. Being in primarily white spaces doesn’t bother me. However, I would like a sense of community from my college experience that I didn’t have during high school. I’m very accustomed to classes with very little POC representation. When I leave the classroom, I hope to see some representation.
There is an African-American Olympic fencer from my town who went to Duke on a fencing scholarship , Ibtihaj Muhammad. She is Muslim and wears a hijab. She wrote a book called “Proud.” It doesn’t sound like she enjoyed her Duke experience very much. It’s an interesting book.