<p>Would Johns Hopkins be an option for your daughter? The student body seemed to me very diverse when we visited. And it's not so far from Pa. Maybe a Hopkins parent can weigh in.</p>
<p>If you want diversity, look at Temple Univeristy. It is one of the most diverse universities, only 58% White.</p>
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It is one of the most diverse universities
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<p>Yes, it is :)</p>
<p>We're visiting Haverford on Saturday for the info session, and my daughter has an interview. We've visited Swarthmore twice, I just don't think she can get into Swarthmore (and maybe not Haverford) but she will apply anyway. </p>
<p>I"ve got to talk her out of Lehigh. She doesn't recognize racial animosity because she didn't see it in Minnesota. I don't want her getting hurt. I want to push her in the direction of the liberal LACs like Haverford and Swarthmore, which are close to home (she's nixed the idea of an all girls school), and Oberlin in Ohio, perhaps the most liberal LAC in the country.</p>
<p>Triguena, regarding your son, I'm always on the lookout for the right match. You can call me an overly protective father, I guess. I have to warn you, though. My D's still a "good girl" in the Biblical sense, and I'm sure will graduate from high school that way. I'm really proud of her.</p>
<p>You may want to suggest colleges to your daughter, but if I were you, I wouldn't try to "push" her into anything. It's got to be her decision.</p>
<p>Plainsman, with all due respect, your propellers are working a little too hard.
Your daughter seems like she has a good head on her shoulders. Perhaps she is quite up to the challenge of a Lehigh or even a sorority.</p>
<p>I have tried to write this post a few different ways, but the bottom line is you had enough courage and inner strength to marry someone outside of your race many years ago. If you have shown your daughter the love you are showing on this board, I think your daughter should have just as much strength and confidence as you 20 some years ago to be anywhere she wants to be.</p>
<p>Oldfort, amazing advice!</p>
<p>Also- while I definitely agree that Lehigh is less (perhaps much less) diverse than some other schools, I don't think that necessarily means she is apt to encounter "racial animosity" there. </p>
<p>I do think your concerns about the heavy influence of the Greek system are justified, and that's something to talk about with her. Of course you will find parents here on CC whose children are thriving in fraternities and sororities, and others (our own S. included) who just were not interested in that lifestyle. I would talk to her very honestly about your concerns, without panicking :) </p>
<p>Would it be possible to plan another road trip and visit a few more colleges that might be new to your list?</p>
<p>I have to agree with oldfort here. Perhaps Lehigh is very white and "conservative" (not sure what you mean in the context you are using the word) - but honestly I have never heard of any outward racism at Lehigh.
There is a huge difference in being out of one's comfort zone and in a hostile racist environment.</p>
<p>Unless you have some clear evidence don't accuse Lehigh and all the students there of racism.
Having a lively Greek system does not a racist school make. It also doesn't mean your daughter has to partake in it at all.
If she really likes Lehigh - get her to spend the night there, visit again.</p>
<p>Perhaps you and she should explore some Historically Black Colleges and Universities?
What does she want to study?</p>
<p>I agree with oldfort that your daughter may have less difficulty than you think. </p>
<p>Growing up in a biracial household, she has probably learned more about diversity and about some people's discomfort with it than you realize.</p>
<p>Also, with the kind of background she comes from, I suspect that she fits in well culturally with white kids and with racially mixed groups, possibly even better than she would with an all-African American crowd. I doubt that she will trigger much of the fear of somebody "different" that leads some insecure college students to be rude to people of other backgrounds. </p>
<p>On the other hand, it doesn't hurt to take the racial mix and attitudes of a college into account when choosing where to apply. There was an African American girl from an urban background who used to post on here a couple of years ago who felt like a fish out of water at Virginia Tech. People weren't rude to her; it was more that the culture was so utterly different from anything that she had ever encountered that she felt that she could never really belong there. She ended up transferring elsewhere, I believe.</p>
<p>My main concern about Lehigh is the Greek system. I wonder whether at a school of Lehigh's relatively small size and isolated location, there is a sufficient number of non-Greeks to provide kids who elect not to join a fraternity or sorority with enough to do. This would be less of a problem at more urban schools (where Greek life tends to be less dominant because there are other things to do) or at large schools (where the sheer numbers of non-Greeks are large enough that it's easy to have a social life outside the Greek system). </p>
<p>I think you are correct to suspect that a biracial girl (particularly your daughter's kind of biracial, which is not the same as oldfort's daughter's kind of biracial) may not fit into a college's Greek system as easily as she would fit into college as a whole. Thus, I would like to see her at a campus where not going Greek is not a problem. I hope she likes Cornell, although it is much larger than any of the other schools discussed on this thread, which may be an issue in itself, depending on your daughter's tastes.</p>
<p>I just looked at the Lehigh Panhel GLOs specific chapter websites. Not all groups had active links for their local chapter. Those chapters who did have active links had sisters of various ethnicities in the snapshots. The rosters were definitely not all WASPy names.</p>
<p>What I did not see on the Lehigh website were any NPHC GLOs ie Alpha Kappa Alpha or Delta Sigma Theta. Sometimes they have city-wide chapters vs. college-specific chapters.</p>
<p>FWIW, Washington and Lee is an extremely homogenous school, especially coming from Northern VA. I advise my own GLO's W&L chapter and I also have a kid there. All 5 Panhel organizations at that school have higher ratios of Asians and African-Americans than the actual school population. I don't know the male fraternity ratios. W&L also has 2 male NPHC and 2 female NPHC chapters. </p>
<p>A girl can't pledge both an NPHC and an NPC chapter. Your daughter would have to decide what path (if any) she would want to take.</p>
<p>"We met a sophomore female who had joined a sorority and admitted that at least a couple of the houses were "very stereotypical," Hollywood central casting: rich white girls, driving BMWs, from New York and New Jersey, who only accepted other rich and attractive white girls."</p>
<p>At almost every college on every tier of USNews, there are going to be some very stereotypical Hollywood central casting rich white girls who only want to hang around other rich white girls. Whether it's bluebloods at Princeton or party girls at Arizona State. If you don't want to be friendly with such girls, then what does it matter if they don't want to be friendly with you? Plainsman, I really don't see why you keep making Greek life into a great big deal. If she doesn't want to join, she doesn't join. It's no different from having a sailing club on campus that you don't want to join. People find friends and make their own good times regardless of whether there is a Greek system or not.</p>
<p>I'll throw this out here: it makes me nervous to construe liberal and conservative in the manner of your original post; that is, as informing whether your child would be welcome in one group and not the other.</p>
<p>Stereotypes cut both ways, and are probably equally untrue.</p>
<p>A biracial relative is considering Lehigh. We visited and saw nothing unwelcoming about it.</p>
<p>And I can't imagine that the Northeast is inherently any more racist than the Midwest (and I say this as a midwesterner.)</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, it depends on the school. I wouldn't recommend attending W&L for example unless you were pretty sure you wanted to go Greek. It's a pretty small school with only a tiny percentage of kids who don't join fraternities or sororities.</p>
<p>The sad truth is that, even today, a student of color is still likely to encounter racial animosity or racism on most campuses. The real question is: when such incidents occur, what is the response of the student body at large, what is the response of student leaders and what is the response of the administration. There is a broad range of responses, and both the speed and tenor of official response sets a tone of campus, indicating the extent to which such conduct will or will not be countenanced. </p>
<p>Mini, I believe, has posted about the difference in the way incidents of racial insensitivity were handled differently at Smith and at Williams - - both "liberal" campuses (though Williams is more conservative than Smith). There are other posts/threads about incidents at other schools as well; Trinity and Colgate are the onse that come to mind, but they are not at all unique in that regard. </p>
<p>In general, more conservative campuses (like Lehigh) are less likely to respond to these incidents in a way that would ease the minds of students of color and their parents. Not to pick on Lehigh, but it also has a well-documented problem with alcohol (yes, I know students drink on all campues, but some schools have long-standing and severe problems in this regard). And add to that the popularity of frats - - with in-group/out-group issues and often also racially segregated -- and you have a set of facts that would make a prudent parent would understandably sit up and say, "not a good idea."</p>
<p>As a parent, I've found Lehigh (both institutionally and culturally) to be forward leaning in the spirit of Dr. King's philosophy: individuals are judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. </p>
<p>This is not to excuse the rare incident of ignorance. The point is that mutual respect and collegialality are foundational prinicples of the university. Were this not the case, I would be the first to have advised against my son's attendance there.</p>
<p>There are also non-Greek alternatives to social/living experiences like South</a> Mountain College.</p>
<p>Plainsman - - glad to see that you checked the recently revived "racism" thread on the Lehigh board; I was going to suggest you do a search.</p>
<p>Without some proof that Lehigh is deficient in this regard, I'd be reluctant to categorize the student population and administration by perceived political leanings.</p>