I remember recommending Howard among a list of other schools to a white student whose listed criteria matched it pretty well, but got considerable backlash from other posters (NOTE: scholarships at the various schools, including Howard, are different, usually worse, now than they were then):
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/14486429/#Comment_14486429
Looks like you got pushback because the OP wanted “a decent jewish population (no SMU or TCU)”.
But I agree with you in that thread, I’d have mentioned it too. The big merit scholarships are how it caught my attention in 2014. For that student, indeed Howard might not be any worse a fit in terms of Jewish population than some other schools mentioned.
Just like some kids have a preference for diversity (and my kid wouldn’t consider schools she felt were “too white”, a choice which in itself is a luxury white people have), some have a preference for a minimum number of people in their racial or religious group and clubs or services for that group, like Hillel or a BSU.
But you’re preaching to the choir here, @ucbalumnus .
People in general do not like being minorities which is the reason that people tend to self-segregate.
Yes but everyone who isn’t white doesn’t generally have that option, @zinhead. Not at selective colleges, anyway.
This is not universally true, although it may be more true in higher racism environments, where being a member of a discriminated-against minority group is more noticeable and unpleasant than in a lower racism environment.
Sure they do; students regularly use race as one of the categories in selecting a school. From personal experience, I know that the Asian kids at our HS prefer attending schools in California because of the high percentage of Asian students. The race based choices may not be as varied if you are not white, but there are choices.
Perhaps that is why the words “in general” were inserted in the original statement.
Do you mean to say that, “in general”, most environments in the US are higher racism environments that encourage people to prefer to self-segregate?
You misunderstood or didn’t read what I wrote. There are maybe 5 selective schools in the country that have more of any ethnic than white people, and that’s Asian students at UCs.
And is there evidence that some white students are choosing not to go to those UCs for that reason?
It’s an unusual situation nationally. But yes, in CA, top Asian students get the same opportunity white kids have everywhere, to choose to be in a majority (or more accurately the largest plurality - I don’t think they are actually a majority at any).
So I stand by my statement, that it is white students, generally, who have that option.
No, Caltech is dominated by Asians.
@roethlisburger I feel like you don’t understand the meaning of the word “generally”. A few exceptions to the rule do not make “generally” untrue. In fact that that’s the purpose of the qualification, otherwise I’d have said “universally” or “always”, wouldn’t I?
And as a matter of fact, Asians aren’t a majority at Caltech either.
http://www.collegedata.com/cs/search/college/college_search_tmpl.jhtml lists 7 colleges with >50% Asian undergraduate enrollment. Of these, 3 are in Hawaii, at least 1 looks like a data entry error, and 2 are small private schools in southern California (not Caltech or any Claremont college). No California publics or well known California privates in this list.
That same site lists 5 CSUs and 1 UC as being >50% Hispanic/Latino.
It is true that there are more colleges in California where a non-white group is the largest one but not the majority (i.e. a plurality).
Given the demographics of California, it is likely that many white high school and college students who grew up in California are used to and not bothered by the idea of being a member of a minority group. So attending a college where that is the case may not be bothersome for them.
Putting aside race for a minute, the area we live attracts quite a few immigrants from around the world. If you go to different areas of Chicago, you will be neighborhoods that are primarily sourced primarily from one ethnicity/region. There are swaths of the city populated by Polish immigrants, with distinct areas for Estonians and Lithuanians. They have their own newspapers and radio stations.
In the Hispanic areas, you will find neighborhoods that are mostly Mexican. You will also find neighborhoods whose residents come specific areas of Central and Southern America, and there are a couple of spots with a high percentage of Puerto Ricans. These people ethnically are similar to each other, but they still self-segregate based on language and culture.
Our own kids soccer teams were racially mixed with Asian, black, Hispanic and white kids, but they all were the children of college educated professionals. The teams we would play would frequently be solidly of one dominant ethnicity. The Mexican teams we played were sometimes voluntarily segregated by where in Mexico the parents came from, and the European immigrant teams were sometimes segregated by home country. We even played a team made primarily of Croatian kids.
Since people are more than willing to self-segregate based on culture and national origin where discrimination against those are relatively non-existent, it should be no surprise that people want to self-segregate based on race whether or not racism is strong or weak.
Chicago is generally regarded as one of the most segregated cities in the US, so it may not be surprising that you see a high level of segregation in sports teams and other social groupings. That high level of segregation is not universal across the US.
That seems to happen quite a bit.
The best HBCU’s like Spelman and Howard have acceptance rates of less than 50 percent. That is generally considered selective.
Whites certainly have the most options for attending schools that they form the plurality, but that does not mean that ethic or racial groups cannot find schools that have sufficiently large percentages of their own to feel comfortable at.
Caltech is 49.5 percent Asian. Both statements can be considered correct.
http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg06_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=706
UC Merced is 51% Hispanic.
Just a point of interest.
Looking at Ivy CDS, white non-hispanic is less than 50% of undergrads. By the majority criteria, white non-hispanic is a minority at selective US colleges.
An Egyptian Americna (Coptic) girl, one year below me, whose family comes and does this at a meeting for a mosque permit, scored a 1960 on her SATs. She, despite no black ancestry, marked down ‘black’ in her colleg eapplication. Her family comes to a mosque meeting and has the building denied (so much for multiculturalism when it doesn’t suit you), and yet despite none of the history of American blacks, her dad a doctor, beats out many of the poorer Moslem, Asian, Indian children who did far better on their SATs, grades, etc. She is also eligible for scholarhisps. Despite the fact none of these kids had the financial priivleges she did
How do you justify something like this? If minorities like this are the ones majority getting AA’s benefits, I think it won’t be around for too long, or our children will stop being able to emigrate freely to this country because of them getting a leg up and denying emigration/oppourtuniteies to others.
@ELopez1275 so this girl lied? She marked black and isn’t?
Despite the many exceptions to the rule that have been brought up, I find it hard to argue that whites don’t have more choices when it comes to not being the majority/plurality or whatever we want to call it.
“Sufficiently large” may vary. @Hanna once mentioned that white students generally preferred schools with white majorities*, but non-white students were more varied in their preferences with respect to a school’s racial/ethnic demographics (or whether it mattered at all to them).
*Though some generally highly desired schools seem to be testing their marketability here with white students as the plurality in the 40-49% range, rather than majority.
Essentially yes. Many of the Copts in paricular will say ‘we are not Arab we are african, so tha tmeans we can check the African/black’ box on college applications (the terminology differs on some non common apps). They do this ALL the time in NJ. They have been doing it since my cousin 15 years ago went to HS.