Some of the states with high LDS populations (e.g. Utah, Idaho) have low black populations.
We live in Texas but for whatever reasons her choices came down between BYU and Boise State. Strangely we have quite a few kids from my city who play ball for Boise State and I tried to steer her there. BYU offered a little more so that is were her dad sent her. I still think Boise State would have been a better fit but she was not my child so it is what it is.
@partyof5 you would be amazed at how many kids going off too college had never interacted with a person of a different race. It’s not an insignificant percentage.
@itsgettingreal17 thats just sad
@toomanyteens, apparently the new provost at Delaware State has decided not to come after all. The university’s board also voted in March to eliminate a quarter of their academic programs. Just things to be aware of as you consider the offer to your daughter:
Sad, but not surprising considering that there are some places where one can live with very little racial or ethnic diversity. Some entire states (like ME, VT, WV, and NH) are 90% or so white (not Latino or Hispanic): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Hispanic_whites#Population_by_state_or_territory .
Even some cities that are diverse on a city level are highly segregated on a neighborhood level: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-most-diverse-cities-are-often-the-most-segregated/ . So people living in those cities may have very little contact with someone of a different race.
Re: #104
http://php.delawareonline.com/news/assets/2016/03/PPIdraftnarrativev8Dec112015.pdf describes the majors that were retained and deactivated.
NH may be a very white state, but I can’t imagine someone living here for 18 years and never meeting a person of color, and if someone is from such an isolated community, I don’t think they’d be going to college. I don’t believe the number is really that high.
I guess it might be different in northern NH. Southern NH, while still not exactly diverse, is increasingly a suburb of Boston and not quite as racially uniform.
I have been on a business trip to a city in one of the three northeast states mentioned recently. The only non-white people I saw besides ourselves were in the airport, in the hotel, and in an ethnic restaurant of an ethnicity whose people are non-white.
From the report linked to in #106:
A lot of teaching degrees from the looks of it.
The number really IS that high. In the last census-2010- the Caucasian population in NH was 93.9% and the black population was 1.5%. It really IS unusual to be around people of color there. It’s my home state. My high school was the largest in the state and had about 2,500 students. I can only think of maybe 10 black kids. I never had a black student in any class until college in another, more diverse state (and yes, many from NH do go to college). There IS a larger minority population in southern NH now, but it’s small compared to many other states.
I was fortunate that my parents, who went to college in NYC, made sure we kids learned about the history of other races and cultures, although we were not taught such in school. It also happened that my dad’s bet friend was black, so we were around that family often. We also heard about their experiences and how different they were at times from our own. This was not common to most of the other families we knew, who were born, raised, went to college and worked all in their hometown or at least their home state.
When my daughter and I visit NH, she makes a game of counting the number of black people she sees, being half-black herself. It’s rare she gets higher than 10, and that’s in the largest city in the state.
Education and foreign languages apparently.
“When my daughter and I visit NH, she makes a game of counting the number of black people she sees…”
I am smiling.
Great links on diversity and demographics, everyone.
Wow on the links for course deactivation. Wow.
The HBC aspect is no big deal.
But athletes very often make a HUGE mistake by picking a college based too much on their sport. And extra especially because of the opportunity to play “D1” and because of the cool factor of getting an athletic “ride” (which is usually just a sliver, not a full ride).
College sports very often doesn’t work out – lack of playing time, team loses a lot, change in interests, too much of a grind, etc. etc. etc. Standard advice is to only pick a school that you’d be happy attending if you suffered a career-ending injury on the first day of practice.
There’s 275 D3 wlax programs out there and lots of them would give your kid nice merit aid. How much athletic money is your kid realistically being offered? I bet it is relatively insignificant economically. My guess is that most of the $$$ are merit money (which your kid could get at this school and many other schools without lacrosse). There’s also plenty of schools with quite competitive club programs. Many of those D3 and club teams would competitively whomp Delaware State which, as a start up program, is going to be the very bottom of D1 wlax for years to come. In 2016 they went 2-9 and ranked 110th out of 111 D1 wlax programs. In 2015, they ranked 107 out of 107 schools.
This one feels like it is being driven primarily by the sparkle of going “D1” and getting an athletic scholarship (which may not be significant economically). If true, you are likely making a mistake. But ymmv.
I’m from NH as well, and as I said it’s very white, but I don’t think there are any NH college students who would have never met a person of color. It’s just not realistic.
OP stated that her daughter is getting a full ride, with a combination of athletic and merit aid. Del State has a very small team, only 15 or 16 players last year, so many on the team are getting full athletic scholaships. Many coaches will make a promise not to decrease scholarships in subsequent years as long as the players remains o the team.
I agree that DSU is not going to be moving up the ranks any time soon but other new D1 programs are strong coming out of the gate. Colorado is top 20 within 3 years , ASU will be strong immediately. Many D3 programs could crush DSU, but those aren’t the ones giving big merit scholarships and many have full recruiting classes already for the class of 2017. I suggested schools with new programs because they may have money and positions still open on the team, and may tick the daughter’s boxes of plying time and leadership. It worked very well for my daughter.
The kid has a 30 ACT at a school where the 75th percentile is 19. So I’m guessing most of the schollie dollars are for the academics. And that there’s plenty of other schools where you could get a pretty similar deal just on the academics and without the lacrosse.
D1 wlax programs are limited to a max of the equivalent of 12 full scholarships. But many schools (especially the new and low level ones) often don’t fund the full 12. The OP can tell us different, but I’m guessing the athletics dollars are quite small.
And the school is also on the less expensive side to begin with. OOS tuition is only $16k.
Sounds to me like someone getting blinded by “D1!!” and “athletic scholarship!!”, and not looking so much at the actual school piece.
The OP’s kid has a 30 ACT. The latest CDS on the DSU website indicates there was not a single enrolled student in the most recent freshman class that had a 30 or higher. Not one. In contrast, Howard (another HBC with a new D1 wlax program) has 29 as the 75th percentile.
Seems like this is all about a sport, and little about academic fit. IMO, that’s exactly backwards.
@toomanyteens @northwesty
Toomanyteens, I cannot agree more with northwesty’s focus on the ACT spread and your daughter’s ACT. She would be severely undermatched at DSU, and actually less likely to finish than at a college more suitably matched for her. Say, range from 28 to 32, a very selective school, which no doubt would have higher freshmen retention rates, higher graduations rates, better everything. Who would be her academic peers? Even getting a degree from DSU would inhibit career or post-grad plans. It does not matter that the school is a HBCU; the draw could be any other factor: close to home, far away, in a great city, lots of FA and scholarships for merit or athletics. The overriding problem is the potential academic misfit. Sorry if I sound shrill. Courageous of you to be the OP and let us all chime in.