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Just curious, a school that is less than 15% white, but more than 80% Asian - is it diverse, super-diverse, or non-diverse? Why diversity is measured by white population? Majority of school aged kids in California are non-white, anyway.
Why can’t we judge kids by the content of character, not by the color of the skin? So much fixation on “race box”. … So much is about race … …
@gmtplus7 you didnt answer the question! I will ask one last time. So you are perfectly happy with a school that is not racially diverse or gender diverse? There is nothing that can be learned from racial diversity or gender diversity in college? Your answer is obvious you just need to admit it
That’s why in my post #52 I deliberately said UMich.
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Yes, we are. My D is in a predominantly Asian (80+%), predominantly male (70+%), magnet school. She is Latina. She likes her school and she likes her schoolmates! She comes to school to learn STEM. She gets more than enough diversity through church and extended family, all kinds of diversity.
IMHO, school is for ACADEMIC learning, first. School is not the beginning and the end of someones life. There are many other venues to meet diverse people.
That only gets done when it suits a specific agenda. When it doesn’t suit a different agenda (by the same person), then it’s optional.
College has to be safe and academically sound. I personally would vote for intellectually non-diverse student body. When all kids are on the same wavelength in terms of education. Intellectually coherent group of students. I don’t care whether they are male, female, gay, transgenger … as long as they love the subject that they are learning.
@californiaaa we just fundamentally disagree My child is a STEM student also . Think about this Dont doctors need to be able to relate to all races and genders? Dont techies need to design apps for all races and genders. Part of academic learning is how to relate to all races and genders with your knowledge. You just have a much narrower view of learning than we do
Provided my kids have intellectually challenging peers and are happy with the dating pool, the racial diversity of the school is not a high priority to me. A lot of other parents probably feel the same, including the parents who send their kids to HBCUs.
Our family has probably been exposed to a lot more global racial extremes than u and are not hung up about the race of people we live, work & go to school with.
@gmtplus7 And a lot of parents do not feel the same. Many people do not like what would appear to be segregated schools- my family included. And how do you know that your family has been exposed to a lot more global racial extremes than me? That is really unsubstantiated BS. You too just have a much narrower view of learning
Really??? Have u ever lived or worked outside the US?
And do u consider HBCUs to be “segregated”?
Based mostly on what is reported on http://www.collegedata.com , white undergraduate percentage of 45.0% or lower among prominent selective schools frequently discussed on these forums:
(private schools)
45.0% Wellesley
44.6% Rice
44.6% NYU
43.4% USC
41.0% MIT
40.4% Cooper Union
40.3% Stanford
38.4% Columbia
33.4% Caltech
(public schools)
42.0% Stony Brook
32.4% UCLA
24.9% Berkeley
However, it is the case that many of the most selective colleges, including most of the Ivy League, are right at around 50% white undergraduate enrollment. If, as you say, that many white students hesitate to attend a school where they would be members of an ethnic minority group, then perhaps it would not be surprising if many of these colleges (who get so many well qualified applicants that they can build their classes however they like) prefer to have white enrollment at that level in order to avoid a marketing problem to white students while having a high enough enrollment of each non-white group to improve marketing to non-white students who, as you say, may not want to feel isolated.
i consider racial diversity to be racial variety. An HBCU or a school that’s 80% Asian or whatever is just going to create a different culture within a school and prospective students need to be honest with themselves about how that will affect them. The hope is that some honestly and introspection on this front leads to greater understanding (of self and others and how I fit into a larger society) and an openness to new experiences for the student.
Her racially diverse school has allowed my daughter to meet and enjoy the company of a variety of students who are different than she is. She’s enjoyed new foods, new cultural experiences, and made great friends. it has been a positive thing. Race is one of many things that make us all different. Certainly “Asian” encompasses a huge diversity of culture, just as any other racial category does. That’s not something to ignore, but it’s not something to turn into a weapon either.
@GMTplus7 This is not about you or me. My family is NOT okay with what we would call segregated schools and it is a deal killer in college admissions. That is the OPs original question. You see no problem with it as long as there is what you would refer to as diversity of opinion which would be almost to categorize
You have stated u are white. So would u have no concerns at all about your presumably white child going to a school that is 3% white, where your kid would be a racial outlier? Or do u just like the concept of diversity where your white kid is nearly always by default in a plurality white school with photogenic representation of different races?
I find that that white people who embrace “diversity” love it so long as they are the majority or plurality. Or so long as they have white privilege when they are in the minority.
I see this all the time w white expats in non-white countries. My white friends even talk quite openly about their white privilege in asia. Brits are the most arrogant about this.
@gmtplus7 you ask a lot of questions to avoid the microscope bring placed upon you. You are the one who is fine with racially segegated schools. I am not. Now you have chosen to attack whites in general for favoring diversity. I really think you need to shift your attention to self reflection and your attitudes that a complete lack of racial and gender diversity is perfectly fine. You and your family wouuld be well served.
GMT, I realize that you’re not talking to me, but I am white and my two older kids are as white as it gets. Blond haired and blue-eyed too. My older daughter chose a high school that was less than 10% white. She and one other white student were often the only white kids in a classroom. I was COMPLETELY comfortable with that. One of my fondest memories of her HS days is of coming home and finding D and some classmates working on a project. There was D, a Muslim girl, an African native boy, and a Vietnamese girl laughing and having fun. So YES, I and perfectly ok with my child being a racial outlier. That was her choice, mind you.
My younger D spent 2 years as the only black kid in her class. We thought it was the right decision because the academics were better. We were wrong. But it wasn’t really because she was not “the majority”. It was because she wasn’t accepted by the majority. Her older sister WAS, and that was the difference. Younger D has felt “at home” at some HBCU’s, not because she LOOKS like the majority, but because she was ACCEPTED as well as finding an academic fit. There is no one size fits all for anyone. For my girls, the answers have been different, but not because of how I feel about it.
But a lot of white parents are NOT comfortable w it, hence the complaints by white parents about elite high schools having too many asian kids. I recall a post in the Prep School Admissions forum from a white dad flatly stating he would not consider Phillips Exeter Academy for his kid bcs it’s (gasp!) 40% minority + mixed race.
You seem to want to paint me as some sort of ku klux klanman who deliberately hunts for racially segregated schools for my kids. I pragmatically want a sizable college dating pool for my kids. The reality is that the clock for finding a life partner starts in college. I would hazard to guess that black families weighing schools with 3% black kids have similar concerns for their kids.
And I want a good classroom learning dynamic. It’s immaterial to me what color the kids are in an English Lit class. They just better be prepared to debate Hamlet.
If a school like UMich has race-blind HOLISTIC admissions, gives special consideration for economic deprivation, and still ends up w a “lopsided” racial profile, then let the chips fall where they may.
^But why does a dating pool not include people of other races and ethnicities?
My kids already date interracially. But looking at new schools, it’s pragmatic to have a default pool.
@T26E4 (re: post 34)…well, yeah. It’s not like CC invented the term. Actually, my brother-in-law went to FAM and he’s about the whitest surfer dude I’ve ever met.