<p>When I encounter students early in the college-selection process, I commonly hear the word diversity on their roster of campus imperatives. Yet fast-forward ahead to May, and these same students are seeking roommates (sometimes even via outside matching services) who share their interests, tastes, and, often, background.</p>
<p>Come September, I hear complaints about freshmen who were stuck with foreign roomies who struggle with English or with those with a disability who dont communicate much at all. And some students who celebrated diversity from afar arent so thrilled when their roommate and guests hail from different cultural or socioeconomic spheres.</p>
<p>The NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) Syndrome can become the NIMBR (Not In My Bed Room) Syndrome on colleges campuses, when students recognize that the diversity that sounded so good on paper is better kept at arms length.</p>
<p>Prospective students---As you make your college choices, can you be honest with yourself about how much diversity you really want? Do you think you would enjoy living with people from different backgrounds, having them as close friends, or simply knowing that they're "out there" but not in your immediate orbit?</p>
<p>Current college students and parentsHave you seen the NIMBR syndrome up close, orinsteadcan you relay stories of roommates from different worlds who learned to share them?</p>
<p>My freshman year of college I roomed with a young woman from Trinidad, who was new to the country. We became fast friends, and that was in 1969! </p>
<p>I have to say I haven’t seen this syndrome with my own kids. They have good friends of many races from all over the world, gay and straight, old and young. But having been raised in coastal California, I think our expectation is that people will be from all over-our public schools are heavily minority, and our privates are a healthy mix of races. </p>
<p>One of the things my Dh didn’t like about a wonderful midwestern school she visited was that it was too homogeneous. So I expect this syndrome might be prevalent for kids who grew up in less diverse communities.
We’re all more comfortable with what we’re used to- which is why diversity in colleges is so important. For some, it may be their first exposure.</p>
<p>When I hear kids asking for schools with “diversity,” they are usually asking for schools that have THEIR ethnic group. They usually don’t really care if another ethnic group is well represented or not.</p>
<p>Hispanic kids want schools with Hispanics, Asian kids want schools with Asians, Jewish kids want schools with other Jewish kids, Muslim kids want schools with Muslim kids, Black kids want schools with Black kids. </p>
<p>I’m not criticizing these kids. I can understand their desires not to be the “only one” in their school.</p>
<p>I rarely hear of a kid from one group rejecting a school because it didn’t have enough kids of ANOTHER ethnic group. </p>
<p>So, that might explain why a diversity-loving student might not be as accepting rooming with someone whose culture is much different from their own.</p>
<p>^^couldn’t disagree with you more…daughter’s college search focused on schools that had a wide variety of religions, ethnicities and races not to mention where they attracted students from…she did not want to be in a school that had a large population of any one religion or overwhelmingly large geographic representation, especially her own…</p>
<p>yes, nobody wants to be the only one of their own “fill in the blank”…</p>
<p>but to assume that everyone who is looking for diversity is only looking for a large % of their own may be a generalization…</p>
<p>I agree with Rodney who says that students looking for “diversity” are NOT merely looking for others from their own background, and I’ve certainly seen many prospective students turned off after visiting campuses that seemed too homogeneous. But I’ve also encountered too many students who sing the praises of diversity as long as it’s not up-close-and-personal. They like the idea of attending a college where at least 42 foreign countries are represented in the student body, but they don’t like returning from psych class to find six women in burqas sitting on their bed.</p>
<p>My two kids rejected schools they felt were too conformist, whatever that meant at any school. (Usually, schools too overtly preppy or too jock, where the social structure seemed too based on that.) Their hs was rigorous and strived to blend many cultures, religions and lifestyles- and economic levels. When they each spoke of “diversity,” they meant the wonderful oppportunities that come from expanding their social circles to include others who are not carbon copies of themselves. I think what would be a tough hurdle for my kids would be fellow students who exhibit profund anti-social behaviors or completely thumb their noses at the academics.</p>
<p>*but to assume that everyone who is looking for diversity is only looking for a large % of their own may be a generalization… *</p>
<p>I’m not assuming anything. And, **nowhere **did I say that it’s true in ALL cases. Note that I wrote…“usually.” I believe that doesn’t mean “all”.</p>
<p>I also didn’t say a “large %,” …I said “well represented”…that can mean 5-10% or whatever.</p>
<p>Your D and others like her are more the exceptions than the rule.</p>
<p>That said… I’ve proven this many times on this forum. Kids post that they’re looking for schools with diversity, yet when I then ask what they’re looking for I usually get a …“well, I really want to know if there are many (my ethnic group) on campus.” Most (not all) of these kids clearly indicate that their real interest is in making sure that their ethnic group is well-represented. And, when they’re told about schools that have a fair number of their ethnic group, they’re usually happy. They’re not typically saying…"well, ok, it has X% of my group which is fine, but I also need to see Y% and Z% of XXX and YYY ethnic groups as well. " Again, I’m not saying that it never happens, it’s just not the norm.</p>
<p>^Maybe it is just a coastal California thing (although I doubt it), but D is specifically looking for a college with a good mixture of cultures. The thought of going to a school where there is a clear majority of any one particular culture does not appeal to her at all. I would actually find it hard to believe that “most” prospective college kids seek homogeneity in their college experience.</p>
<p>Whether or not they get along with their roommates, in my opinion, will probably have more to do with personality differences than with ethnic group differences.</p>
<p>For my daughter, the desire for diversity was mostly food-driven, to be honest. We live in California and eat food from a wide variety of cultures. She was miserable at a summer program on a rural New England campus where most of the choices were traditional American cuisine.</p>
<p>I’m a prospective student, and I haven’t really thought about diversity. I think my only criterion regarding student body is that I want a school with people in it. I guess I’m not setting myself up for surprise if diversity smacks me in the face upon matriculation.</p>
<p>For some students, diversity could mean being with a student body that is not too much like their high school’s student body. My guess is that in these cases most students don’t feel the need to keep diversity at arms’ length.</p>
<p>Well, I grew up as the rare minority in a super white town, and that’s what I’m used to. When I ask for diversity, I mean it. I’m not looking for people who look me (I couldn’t care less what the people I’m friends with look like), I’m just looking for an environment that isn’t too one dimensional. Generally speaking (there are always exceptions), a diverse campus means students who are okay reaching beyond their own race in terms of friendships, dating, and whatnot.</p>
<p>Also, diversity goes way beyond just skin color and country of origin, and it irks me that people automatically go back to that. When I ask for diversity, I mean in terms mindsets, perspectives, and THEN color/cultural background.</p>
<p>Both my Ds would say they value diversity, but a large percentage of “THEIR ethnic group” is the furthest thing from their minds when they say that; to them, that would be the opposite of diversity. And they’re thinking beyond ethnicity—they really enjoy being around kids from a variety of geographic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds, kids who have had a variety of life experiences, kids with a variety of skills, talents, and interests, and a representative mix of gay and straight and bi and trans-gendered where all those flavors are accepted as equally valid. And I don’t think they’re alone in that. Most of their friends and peers share those values. I really think it does today’s youth a disservice to underestimate the degree to which they’re not only open to, but actually seek out genuine diversity. These kids are remarkably open-minded and eager to learn from each other by seeing the world through each others’ eyes, even if only in brief glimpses. I think that’s an admirable outlook, something to be encouraged and not dismissed.</p>
<p>Just as an example on the ethnic front: my D2’s best friends at school include a Hmong girl, an Eritrean girl, and a half-American/half-British girl who spends a big chunk of her summers in London. Her best friends out of school are a Brazilian and an Orthodox Jew, and she corresponds regularly by e-mail and Facebook with a friend in Sweden whom she met while traveling with me in Europe. She also keeps up with the Serbian exchange student who lived with us last year. My D spends a chunk of her summers at an immersion language camp studying Finnish–concededly a heritage language for her–and she hopes to do a study abroad year in Finland while still in HS, but she expects to have fully mastered Finnish by the time she finishes HS and hopes to move on to other languages, and other study abroad experiences, in college. This year she decided to add French, not only because she loves France (which she does) but because she’s intrigued by Francophone cultures in the Americas, in Quebec, Louisiana, Haiti, and elsewhere, as well as in Africa. Oh, and D2 is the vice-president of her Model UN group, and enjoys attending model UN events in New York in no small part because she gets to meet delegates from all over the world. Not surprisingly, perhaps, she’s thinking she might like to study international relations or international studies in college, but she knows she doesn’t need to decide yet so she’s keeping her mind open. Atypical? Well, extreme, perhaps, but most of her friends are similarly engaged and open to genuine diversity, if not equally passionate about it.</p>
<p>I’m happy my college has a very diverse student body. It’s certainly not a case of “I want a large representation of my own race”, LOL. I’m white and came from a whitey-whiteville town where most people (over 90%) are white. Now I’m on a campus were there appear to be at least as many people of color as white people (I say “appear” because I haven’t actually looked at the statistics). It’s neat! In addition, there’s a strong Scandinavian population that identifies as Scandanavian rather than just “white.” And that is also a form of diversity that I hadn’t experienced before. This diversity of the student body is reflected in the course selections–just looking at the languages offered, there’s everything from Hindi to Mandarin to Finnish. That is a very quantitative advantage of a diverse school.</p>
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<p>Well, people who are unhappy with their situation talk the loudest. Are you polling ALL students or just listening to the ones who seek you out? Happy students are usually not going to come knocking on your door saying, “Hey, let me tell you how happy I am with my international/disabled roommate . . . SO HAPPY!!!”</p>
<p>I’m a nontraditional student, so I house in apartments rather than in dorms. (And I will say frankly that I’m grateful for that, not being a fan of the common “two people in a box” model.) But I worked on a job in the middle of nowhere once that required group housing because . . . well, it was in the middle of nowhere and there was no one else around. There were four of us living in a three-bedroom house. Anyway, we were quite a diverse group–four different religions (if you count atheism and agnosticism as religious viewpoints), conservatives and liberals, different races, and so on. </p>
<p>We all got along fine for the most parts, and the spats that DID occur were not based on religion, politics, or race, but simply on personality (exacerbated by the stress of a very work-intense job with very long hours.) We did learn a lot from one another. And we weren’t even “looking for diversity”, just for a job. The diversity just happened to come along with it.</p>
<p>The thread on the parent forum certainly addresses what a large percentage of parents are looking for when diversity is brought up…are there enough students attending that share my religion?</p>
<p>The thread started in May and has over 2,000 posts and over 20,000 views so there is something to be said for what mom2college said.</p>
<p>I wanted a school with diversity as I was considering going into something like international law or biz and/or IR stuff. However, I do agree that some student define diversity as “my ethnic group.” My school is mostly white and asian, so I can’t speak for other ethnic groups, but I would say that most of my Caucasian friends dont’ care about the diversity of a school (though most of them attend diverse colleges and have a racially mixed group of friends). Among my Asian friends, I would say about 75% of the guys I know hang out with mostly Asians, while only about 25% of the girls I know do that. Actually, my friend who is Chinese adamantly refused to attend a college because there were two many Asian people, which I thought was kinda ironic. Sorry if I seem to be stereotyping. Im just telling my personal experiences. :)</p>
<p>I think the original question here was about our own experiences and those of our own college kids- and whether we have seen NIMBR.
It makes sense that a URM may prefer a campus where he/she is not a Lone Ranger. So be it. That doesn’t mean he or she would reject a roommate from another background.<br>
Likewise, I doubt we can predict about WASP kids. I can tell you D1 had a minority roomie who remains a close, close friend; her best friend this year has a different ethnic background and they are inseparable. D2 has one international roomie and two who are of another religious faith. All great friends. My girls study and party with the various ethnic and racial groups on campus, rich kids and poor, the achievers and the average, kids from odd parts of the country, kids with different lifestyle preferences- even jocks and preppies. And, all those kids party with my girls.<br>
Why no issues? Because the principle behind diversity works. Get to know each other, find what you have in common and enjoy.<br>
We are not from CA.</p>
<p>are we talking about what parents want for their kids or what the kids want themselves? probably two very different things…I think Sally was asking about the kids…</p>
<p>As a prospective (white) student, I am looking for a great number of my own race. Although not racist or anything like that, I have found that I “click” better with my friends of my race. </p>
<p>I feel that many students that are non white will go visit a predominately white school (Notre Dame comes to mind) and be turned off, but I highly doubt a white student will be turned off by this.</p>