<p>I’m nodding my head too. I went to Howard though. Go Bisons!</p>
<p>And Fab, I KNEW you were going to say that. You want this high school senior to accept a less than ideal fit, for the good of humanity in the futrue. The very DISTANT future, when presumably we will all be ethnically ambiguous.Ok, I know you didn’t say that. </p>
<p>"In my experience, minorities who gravitate towards schools like Howard university instead of the MAJOR powerhouse universities are making a big mistake. Since you’re interested in engineering, I would advise you to apply to the best engineering universities without regard to the racial makeup. "</p>
<p>The problem with this is, there is a huge chasm between Howard at 95 percent black, and almost everywhere else with 3 percent or less. That chasm includes a lot of top schools, and maybe they see part of their mission as filling that void, even if it means having a few students that make CC’ers raise an eyebrow. And for the record, relatively few minorities are gravitating toward HBCU’s these days, and THEY are doing it because they value something in their education outside of the best engineering education. Hard to believe, but some think there is value in it, and it goes way beyond being around a lot of black people. </p>
<p>And kingkongisanape, good luck with nine percent! I’d be really curious about how many schools that are 9 perecnt black, but not HBCU’s you find. Our family had to set the threshold closer to 7, and the list was still short, at least outside of the south. </p>
<p>If he considers it paramount that the school he attend be at least 9% black and he wants to study engineering, he doesn’t have a whole lot of choices, which you yourself recognized in your last paragraph.</p>
<p>My alma mater, Georgia Tech, is “only” 5% black, alongside Cornell. MIT is “only” 6% black, as is Carnegie Mellon. Stanford comes closest at 8%, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for anyone to bank on a Stanford acceptance.</p>
<p>So I’m not sure if there even exists an ideal fit for him given his preferences; he has to accept a “less than ideal fit.” My point was that if he attends a school that defines “diversity” as “if I can’t see it, then it doesn’t exist,” then he is likely to CONTINUE to receive the same asinine comments he’s been receiving his whole life.</p>
<p>How can you be viewed as an individual at a school that views you as a member of a racial classification? If the problem, most broadly, is that people are making judgments based on racial classification, why does anyone support a policy that continues to group people by racial classification?</p>
<p>Fabrizio, I know you may find this hard to fathom, but never has a day dawned in America (and indeed, even for more than a century before its official founding) when blacks have not been defined (almost entirely negatively) by their membership within a certain racial classification. If you think the end of AA will mark the end of that loooooon epoch, you’re kidding yourself.
It’s SSDD for us.</p>
<p>“If he considers it paramount that the school he attend be at least 9% black and he wants to study engineering, he doesn’t have a whole lot of choices, which you yourself recognized in your last paragraph.”</p>
<p>I was thinking SHE! How weird is that?</p>
<p>Edit;
Oh…it must have been the hair comments, or maybe the part about identity as a black woman…</p>
<p>To the contrary! What you say is why I don’t support racial preferences. For centuries, our country treated blacks wrongly purely on the basis of their racial classification. How, then, does it make any sense to CONTINUE classifying people by racial classification? Because now the classification is for “good”?</p>
<p>No, if the problem was that we were treating people as members of groups instead of individuals, then we should…stop treating people as members of groups! Will that bring about a new day like <em>that</em>? Of course not. Will we get there eventually? Yes. Under the current system, we will never get there.</p>
<p>gee, such profound stereotypes about black people being poor students. im sure harvard is dying to admit less of them so that this narrowmindedness may be openly discussed in the classroom and cafeteria. #tools</p>
<p>^^ The difference it makes for what? It doesn’t make a difference for me dealing with my fellow human beings; I figure they all have plenty in common with me. </p>
<p>Colleges are vague about how they apply their admission policies to the actual files that cross the tables of admission committees. But colleges are surely not all uniform in their policies regarding any admission criterion.</p>
<p>For the most selective schools, which would give a higher chance of admission, selecting “white” or leaving the race section unanswered? Opinions?</p>
<p>All this rather makes me think that, to too many, “race” is still a “big bad wolf” out there, something we are all too aware of, whether we think it offers an advantage or a disadvantage. Shows something, I think, about our psychology and quickness to judge others by physical features. To me, it doesn’t matter whether one thinks it’s because some govt or college thing tallies. Look at what it says about us. Step back from the neatly framed argument about admissions or govt categories and ask what your own beliefs and practices (and stereotypes) are.</p>
<p>So, I am with TA- what diff does it make in dealing with fellow human beings? I won’t be drawn back into the “but it’s admissions reality” argument. Look at your own thoughts and opinions about other races and how easily you categorize.</p>
<p>I have no evidence to back up speculation on what is expedient for a particular student applying to a particular college (as to reporting race or ethnicity or not). I’m sure that the answer, whatever it is, in the particular case doesn’t generalize to the general case.</p>
<p><a href=“%5Burl=http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/13481598-post235.html]#235[/url]”>quote</a> …Shows something, I think, about our psychology and quickness to judge others by physical features. To me, it doesn’t matter whether one thinks it’s because some govt or college thing tallies. Look at what it says about us…</p>
<p>…Look at your own thoughts and opinions about other races and how easily you categorize…