So, the question is, is a college’s racial/ethnic composition an unstated overriding factor for many people, such that many think that it should always be mentioned when suggesting a college that otherwise fits the questioner’s stated search criteria (although few actually do mention it when suggesting colleges)? Is it even commonly an overriding factor compared to such basic factors as affordability and academic offerings?
It was for us, less for our kids. We were willing to pay for that. Husband went to Columbia undergrad, Einstein Med school, I went to Howard for both. LOTS more non black students in the Howard med school. And we finally met at Einstein! Go figure.
Dd is half-Asian. She’s lived in a non-diverse community (Minnesota) and a diverse community (Canada). It was very difficult for both her and her older brother to make friends when everyone else was of a different ethnicity. Ethnic composition and diversity of the student population was a criteria in selection of the colleges she will apply to. She’s also an outgoing, social girl who wants to go into a techy major. She wanted to be able to have male and female friends as well as potential dates. So, all-female schools as well as schools that were predominantly male have been eliminated from the list.
That having been said, I don’t think it needs to be mentioned when people are suggesting schools. As well, I kind of feel annoyed at the threads where people making suggestions inquire about how much the family can afford, so I don’t think cost needs to be mentioned either. If those are important to someone applying to a college, they can certainly research it themselves.
I would mention if I was suggesting a lesser-known HBCU to someone whose ethnicity I didn’t know, if only because to many people it would matter. I do assume they’ve at least heard of Howard, Morehouse or the more prominent ones. For MY D, racial/ethnic make up is THE overriding factor as she looks at colleges.As a biracial kid, she’s had the experience of being in a primarily white school and the only brown child in her class. That alone, never mind the occasional racial remark, made her determined to be in a majority population for college. I swear an actual light bulb went off over her heard when she first heard of HBCU’s. When we talk about schools to people, often we get “huh” or “What is an HBCU?” so I do always clarify.
By now, D has toured 14 or 15 colleges, half with us, half on a tour, all but one an HBCU. What we’ve seen is that the larger HBCU’s, especially the public ones, have a fair number of non-black students. Tours at these schools had several white and Hispanic kids along. But even the smaller schools are admitting kids who are not black. Hampton had a white valedictorian a few years back, and our guide at Fisk last summer was Asian/Hispanic. HBCU’s can be a good option for kids who are not high stats, as some offer good, even great scholarships for B grades and mid-range test scores. Some have very well-regarded programs, such as NCAT for engineering or pharmacy, or Howard for health majors.
I’m getting off-topic, but for D, and us, while cost is obviously critical, we’ve found that with the automatic scholarships at certain HBCU’s, most will be affordable for us. Because race/ethnicity is imperative for her, we looked at the TYPE of school first, the majors next, as she has a specific one in mind, then the costs. The mantra is that she must be happy to go to any of them, but if the money doesn’t come through (some merit money is competitive, not automatic), her safeties are state directionals with auto-admit for her GPA and which are affordable for us, even with no merit aid.That might not be how anyone else would do things, but it’s our plan.
I’m an Asian living in CA and I didn’t apply to any of the UC schools, not even as safeties (the only one I was seriously considering was UC Berkeley though). The main reason was because I was bored of California and wanted to live on the East Coast, but an additional reason was because I was tired of being surrounded by Asians. My high school is 40% Asian, but the overwhelming majority of people in my classes are Asian (students in the AP classes are predominantly Asian; ex: only 6 out of 35 students in AP Comp Sci are non-Asian). Same for 2 of my extracurricular activities (speech/debate and journalism).
I applied to schools where I knew I would be a minority A sizable black population at a school was also appealing because I can count the number of black people I’ve met in middle school and high school on TWO HANDS (you don’t know how surprised I was when I first found out that there were way more African-Americans than Asians in the US)! Overall though, the racial composition wasn’t that important to me as long as there weren’t a ton of Asians like at the UC schools.
Youngest went to Pharma at Rutgers and thought the Asian population would be a plus for her. While she felt socially it was a plus, with her classes being about 2/3 Asian she feels the pressure and competition is a lot more than she had planned on.
" sizable black population at a school was also appealing because I can count the number of black people I’ve met in middle school and high school on TWO HANDS"…Similar for my kids, but two hands only if you counted cousins…
(you don’t know how surprised I was when I first found out that there were way more African-Americans than Asians in the US)! That’s pretty funny. My kids were also surprised.
My daughter who is Asian wanted a school where race or ethnicity didn’t matter. She’s been raised in fairly white surroundings, and her interests are country music, sports, fashion. She goes to a school with a fairly mixed student body, but most of her friends are white.
My other daughter, who is white, wanted a diverse student body. She didn’t get one statically at her school, but has found it doesn’t matter at all. She lives on an international floor so what little diversity there is she comes in contact with every day. As much as she wanted diversity, I don’t think she would have been happy as the minority at a HBCU, just as her sister didn’t want to go to a heavily Asian school. It would have been a big culture shock to either to go from a white community to a heavily minority one.
We live in Miami, which is majority Hispanic, of which the primary component is Cuban. We also have (I believe) a higher than average percentage of blacks, of which many are first or second generation immigrants from the Caribbean. Plenty of Asians, too. Needless to say, it’s a very mixed ethnic bag.
My son has typically been one of a handful of blonde blue-eyed kids in his school. All his friends are from one of the groups described above. But I imagine it can be disconcerting when complete strangers come up to you in a shopping mall and touch your hair.
So, while it’s not an overriding factor, he has given consideration to schools with a higher percentage of non-hispanic whites. It’ll be a new situation for him.
Tolerance, rather than percentages, is a factor for my white son.
Like @subtropicus, my son goes to a public high school where he is in a small minority of white students whose families are native English speakers. The majority of the school are kids of Asian, South-Asian, Middle-eastern (they may identify as white, depending), Russian, Ukrainian, Caribbean and so forth. Black and Hispanic are both in the teens, percentage-wise, and I would say 10% or less are white of Northern European extraction like us. The kids are open about talking about stereotypes and differences and overall I would say there is a focus on what the students can do, not what they look like. Though of course the teachers build on the interesting mix of backgrounds and heritages in the humanities classes.
For college, engineering to be specific, he would expect a similar mix. I don’t know that he would decline to go to a school because, for example, there was small percentage of one kind of student or another, but he has commented when schools seem to have an absence of diversity. If it was all white people, that would be weird.
One thing he does care about is an accepting environment, and that goes for sexual orientation as well as race/ethnicity. If I school has a bad reputation for not being tolerant of all kinds of people, that would be a bigger turn off than actual percentages of different kinds of students.
Our high school is very diverse - 40% white, 40% African American and 15% Hispanic when my kids attended. More Hispanic now. I really noticed how different colleges looked. Older son’s (CMU School of Computer Science) was heavily male, and huge Asian contigent (both South Asia and Far East). Younger son’s is a typical East Coast private - his friends are very diverse, but mostly because they are internationals!
My first kiddo has accepted a spot at a predominantly white public uni in an area of the state that is similarly mostly white. We a mixed Asian-White family and are in a large metro area with tons of diversity (racial, religious, SES) – Caucasians make up about 15% of her school. I have to admit that going to the scholarship interview session that in a room of about 300 ppl, there was only 2 non-white parents beside myself was unexpected. And one of them is my Latino friend whose daughter also was applying!
She turned down two other programs (that are very diverse) for good reasons and her mom and I support her decision.
My concern is that she’ll encounter provincial thinking (muslims must be like this, blacks like that) and will just go off because that’s completely antithetical to what she holds and has been surrounded by. She’s rather intimidating – I just hope she doesn’t expend too much energy having to defend her positions. Maybe that’s the protective dad coming out… I dunno. It’ll be an adventure for sure!
“is a college’s racial/ethnic composition an unstated overriding factor for many people,”
Yes. It is a dealbreaker for the vast majority of white people. They do not consider universities where they will not be in the majority. This preference is invisible because whites are in the majority at the vast majority of U.S. universities.
For people who aren’t white, there’s a lot more variation. Some seek schools where they will be in the majority; most look for schools where they won’t feel isolated; a few don’t care.
Like most things in life, it depends on the individual and family. That said, there is a huge difference of a kid growing up in Greenwich, CT, and going to Howard, as a south side Chicago kid going to Bucknell. Some purposely want to go to diverse collegiate environments, others less so…
Lack of diversity was a deal breaker for my child who is white and went to a mixed public high school and had lots of options. I am not sure how Hanna comes up with her conclusions. My child wanted a school that could expose them to lots of different viewpoints
A sizable black population at a school was also appealing because I can count the number of black people I’ve met in middle school and high school on TWO HANDS (you don’t know how surprised I was when I first found out that there were way more African-Americans than Asians in the US)! Overall though, the racial composition wasn’t that important to me as long as there weren’t a ton of Asians like at the UC schools.