I am an asian student attending a public high school in the Silicon Valley of California. I believe I have the credentials that may give me a chance at getting accepted into one of these extremely selective Maine LAC schools, I am hoping to major in chemistry, but I have interest in CS. I’ll find out if that’s what I want to pursue once I take my first CS class in my senior year.
As a student who has lived in the tech-booming, fast-paced, asian-dominated, and LGBTQ-inclusive community, I am wondering if I will have a great experience at these schools, considering my race. I want to go to an LAC and get an academically-intensive experience so that I can better prepare for graduate school.
I may be overthinking this, but an asian female upperclassmen 4 years my senior got accepted into Colby. She was excited to attend there, but when her and her family visited there for Accepted Student’s Day, her attitude towards the school changed quickly. When the parents & students separated into their circles and gave their introductions, when it was their turns, both her and her parents were SKIPPED. Afterwards, they discussed how they felt excluded from these socially ill white families, and declined their offer of admission.
However, this is only one experience I know from one student from only a day of visiting. I am hoping that things are actually better, and that this experience was an outlier. If you have expertise in these LAC schools, any thoughts are appreciated. I hope I could get feedback from a URM student who attended one of these schools.
Thank you for taking your time reading my post; I’ll be looking forward to all of the feedback!
The best way to get a feel of those places and see if you would fit in is to visit yourself. I know that all of them have very different vibes, but the feel of those schools will likely be different than what you are used to coming from Southern California. I am a fan of LACs but because of the smaller nature of the schools, it becomes more important in ensuring that it is the right fit for you, especially because you do have a couple of good in-state options for CS in California.
I agree with @shawnspencer. You should visit yourself. Personally, I know Asian kids at all 3 of those schools who are very happy and who selected them because they felt so friendly and welcoming.
At the same time, I recently talked with a friend’s D whom I suspect would be pretty miserable at any of these.
If you have the stats to be in the running for these 3, you have tons of great options where you will thrive.
Thank you so much for your thought-out responses; however, I won’t have time to visit these schools before applying to them, but after admission decisions, I wlll definitely consider.
I will try to make as much time as possible in my schedule so that I can have the opportunity to apply to these elite colleges. I will let you guys know how I feel about these colleges if I ever get to visit them! :^)
I’ve heard that Colby is very “conservative and white” of course this may give you a boost instead… I would recommend Bowdoin as a top choice because it is very elite and also diverse. Of course this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t apply to Bates & Colby as they are both great as well.
there’s actually a 45 minute student-created documentary about life at colby on youtube. you can find it by just searching “colby college” in the youtube search bar. i highly recommend watching it if you’re interested in the school. it provides important perspectives from different students.
in my opinion, it sounds like bates is the best school (out of the three) for what you may be wanting.
A good way to kind of get a feel of a place before you visit is to ask people on CC or read student reviews of the different places. You should take them with a grain of salt, but it will give you a general sense of the strengths/weaknesses of each place and the general vibe of each college.
The Colby life video will give you a good idea of what it’s like to be unhappy at Colby. Of course, there are students who will tell you this doesn’t resemble their experience at all.
None of these schools are “very diverse” , and all are working at it in earnest. Rural Maine is an uphill battle on that front for all of them. And it’s hard to attract POC to be in a small minority.
@XCBikeSwimSleep , I am glad you are open-minded and I hope you get a chance to check them out next spring! One of them might be perfect for you. Who knows?
My girls went to Bates. Nearly every kid there has some level of sophistication and life experiences that offered perspective and savvy. Like Colby and Bowdoin, a measure come from all sorts of cities and envronments. Many from tech-rich Massachusetts and from NYC. This is not like some gentle colleges where wallflowers can come and hide. There may not be many Asian Americans, but the community as a whole is welcoming. If you have the skills, social and other, if you have interests that fit, you can be fine.
But you need to learn more about these colleges, on your own, what’s valued, what kids do enjoy, etc. Bates is big on community partnerships, the opportunity to either make a difference in the local community or serve internships that enrich your own experience.
Why Maine? There are a lot of educated, sophisticated folks in that area, any of the 3 colleges. But there are also local issues not quite like those in Silicon Valley.
@gardenstategal & @lookingforward , good points. @XCBikeSwimSleep, you should think about visiting Maine in January or February… Silicon Valley has average “winter” temps of 60-70 degrees. In Maine, …we joke we’ve got 2 seasons, winter and the 4th of July… Winter comes in November and leaves at the end of March/beginning of April. Baseball games in April get cancelled because there’s snow on the field… (That’s why Colby turfed it’s baseball field.) And you’re going to have 4 years of that, which might be ok by you. But it’s different here than in the Bay area.
But the colleges have heat, lol. Some walks will be further, 9 or 10 minutes rather than 4, but it’s not like walking an hour out to the back 40 acres. And lol, colleges shovel their walks (more than I can say, in my neighborhood.)
Isn’t beginning of March, “mud season?”
There are cold nights in California, November isn’t necessarily t-shirts and bathing suits. And many kids are experienced with snow. Think of the many SV folks who ski.
Yeah, we’ve got all the seasons - “mud season,” “blackfly,” “tourist,” “snowmobiling” etc.
True there’s central heating and indoor plumbing (think: wells and outhouses otherwise)…and lights (it’s dark here in the winter).
It might not be a factor in XCBSS’s case, but it’s a reality. And that reality does impact who comes to school here.
As you (@lookingforward) point out, many of the students at CBB come from the Northeast and really everywhere else. And most come from places that are very multicultural and open, it’s not like students go to school in Maine because it’s not diverse or not welcoming here. They come cause it’s Colby, it’s Bates, and it’s Bowdoin…they each have their own feel, vibe, culture…which you can’t get from a website or a youtube video.
[btw, when you see people in San Fran in shorts and t-shirts in November or January, it’s very possible they are from the North ] :)>-
Why would you want to go to an almost all white place 100000 miles away in the middle of nowhere, when there are many good schools both large and small that are academically challenging, many of them nationally ranked that are nearby? The nearby schools will obviously be more diverse. The main reason people might go to a school far away that hardly anyone has heard of is because someone else has recommended it, but if you’re already hearing a negative experience…
I know you all in the peanut gallery will come up with dozens of reasons why school X is good or why one should go, but I’d like to hear only the OP answer this. If you’re already uncomfortable about race being an issue at these schools, why bother?
I’m skeptical that in a typical admissions office around-the-room introduction session, anyone would be skipped deliberately due to their race. Just from a college marketing perspective, it doesn’t make sense.
I also don’t see why the college experience should be significantly better or worse at these 3 schools for an Asian American than for somebody else (depending on what you want in a college, of course.) If you want a high quality, selective college that offers small classes and total focus on undergraduates, with professors (not TAs) conducting virtually every class, and if you’d like to experience a different part of the country, you could do a lot worse than Bowdoin, Colby, or Bates. Sticker prices are very high but for a middle class family (~$75K-$110K), Bowdoin’s average net price is close to the averages for Berkeley or UCLA (according to College Scorecard). YMMV.
At Bowdoin, a recent freshman class was about 60% white, close to the percentage of white non-Hispanic Americans in the total US population. Asian Americans were about 9% of that class, which is higher than the percentage they represent in the overall US population (but far lower than the percentage you’d find at some of the UCs). See the latest Common Data Set files for more details.
In theory yes, but it does seem that there are significant unstated racial preferences in college selection and suggestion. Also, with polls suggesting that people increasingly believe that racism is a “big problem” ( http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/08/29/views-of-racism-as-a-major-problem-increase-sharply-especially-among-democrats/ ), it may not be surprising that concern about potential racial discrimination at a college is increasing, particularly among those who will be members of a small minority group at the college*. However, the tendency to base decisions on anecdotes that may not necessarily be generally representative applies here as well as in many other situations, leading to potentially misleading conclusions.
For example, why is UAH the go-to school around these forums for suggesting to students seeking automatic big merit scholarships, but Tuskegee, PVAMU, and AAMU are largely ignored?
*Although it is sometimes the case that racism is greater against larger minority groups that are somehow seen as a “threat” in numbers.
Some kid had a bad experience. That doesn’t mean it’s bad for all. You need certain life skills to move to another area, deal with a new context of classmates, etc. Most kids aiming for the level of college that CBB are has those resources. This isn’t about racial discrimination or preferences. It’s about three well-known, successful colleges in Maine. Most people outside New England know little about Maine.
Istill want to know why Maine, for OP? Is this an idea to get into a strong college looking for diversity, not inundated with apps from Northern CA Asian Americans? What does OP know about these colleges?
Sometimes, people act as if people oin other areas are going to freak if someone different than them shows up. Most of us in this vaast country know lots of people who are or look different than us.
@lookingforward exactly. We’ve gone on tours/events/lectures at these schools, no one gets skipped cause of race, hair, clothing, etc. CBB have a lot going for them.
