<p>thanks for great input from most of you.</p>
<p>Ideas forming in my head based on your input.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Perhaps it’s best that I stick to a more straight forward college admission strategy discussion. I feel awfully inadequate to address which colleges will provide better and more comfortable environment for them, etc. As someone mentioned above, I am sure the Muslim/Arab community has various web resources where they have more accurate and up to date information on such things, just like Jewish web sites with information on universities/colleges with good hilel support.</p></li>
<li><p>I hear you loud and clear: URM status does not apply here. That said, the diversity angle can still help them, just as it would help a kid from central Wyoming gain acceptance from a tippy top university over yet another applicant from NJ with comparable stats (that would be my kids 
) Perhaps discussion on how to weave that diversity angle into their application package so that it stands out and provides a differentiated value is a legit one from an admission strategy point of view.</p></li>
<li><p>Related to (2) above: the LACs angle. I suspect this community (with many recent immigrants from Middle East) is not very aware of the fine education top LACs provide. Just following some threads on this board, it’s clear that the more sophisticated the student body is in terms of college admission gaming strategies and resources available to them, the better the awareness of the top LACs and the quality education they provide. It’s amazing now, but, until I started to frequent CC, I have never heard of the likes of Ponoma, Claremont McKenna, Carleton, Williams etc, and we are talking about two Ph.D. and an MBA between H and me (well, we are in a tech field, and most of our colleagues come from the usual suspects such as MIT, CalTech, CMU plus big 10+ public schools with engineering programs). I bet the awareness of good LAC as an outstanding option for their kids in this community of my audience is not really up there. So, I will definitely add a short discussion on options regarding LAC just so that they will be aware of much greater options their children should have than they would have thought otherwise. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Now that we are talking about LAC, and looping back to the “diversity” angle above, I would like an input from the knowledgeable CC parents on following:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Since LACs are usually much smaller, is it in general more difficult for students who don’t fit the general mold of “average” students, meaning it may be harder to find other students with similar interests and sensitivities. I have NO experience with LAC, so I have no idea.</p></li>
<li><p>Do LACs in general provide comparable level of fin aid? “Comparable” as in “compared” with the USNWR national universities with similar admitted student profiles and stats. For instance, does Amherst provide similar level aid to, say, non-HYP Ivies? Do they also seem to “encourage” students with an interesting “diversity” angle with generous fin aid?</p></li>
</ol>
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<p>I thank your input in advance. Please note that I will be leading this discussion in a local Mosque. I am soliciting your input on how to help my audience devise a good college admission strategy with the reality as it is, NOT to debate the political/ideological issues or question/validate the existing practices </p>
<p>I know that there are people who are dying to the debate political/ideological angle, but that’s not the subject matter here. </p>
<p>I am in charge of an outreach program in an interfaith dialog group. We have had hard time recruiting partners and members from the Muslim/Arab community even though the president of our group is a Palestinian (a Muslim). Jews, Christians, and atheists are coming out of the woodwork to participate in these activities, but Muslims are not (I can understand why, but again that’s a different subject matter). So, I decided to reach out to them with something of a practical value to this community as a way of introducing ourselves to them. You know, people need to get used to sharing the same space time continuum 
before any kind of dialog can start.</p>