<p>If your S can't find satisfaction re: racial diversity/real integration.. he seeks at a university, then try looking at LAC's then..</p>
<p>Of my 3 kids, two attended Oberlin and Amherst, so admittedly I'm over-the-top in love with these schools. But in objective fact, they make records among LAC's re: diversity, statistically. Observable ONLY by visiting, I suppose, but also read their weekly bulletins, etc. and see how often you feel this theme is reflected. Your S must have strong feelings and these should be appreciated for "right fit."</p>
<p>Amherst is a top academic institution with tremendous diversity and dedication to it; racial as well as economic diversity are key components pursued by President Anthony Marx. Google it up or read about it here on CC.
I forget how it's figured, but maybe the highest percentage of Asians at any top LAC...and well-represented among AA's. </p>
<p>Oberlin doesn't top the scales like Amherst or Williams over at USNWR, in part because Oberlin doesn't play all the right games. For example, they refuse to separate out the Conservatory and College students, even though the stats might suffer, because they say they've been a unit for a hundred years or more, so why should a magazine change that? So I believe they're somewhere around 25 on the USNWR list of colleges. On-the-scene, however, they consider their biggest comparable school to be Swarthmore; as a college, I think that's a good comparison point. That said, Oberlin's authentic history as America's first college to admit African-Americans (in those days, runaway slaves...) is nonpareil. It continues to attract people who admire that principal today. </p>
<p>I know you're tied to your son's wishes right now just to look at unis.
I think the only way he'll really know is to visit the campus. There have been many studies in h.s. about how kids group themselves in cafeteria settings.
I'd say you can figure things out by seeing who breaks bread with whom.</p>
<p>In the LAC group, Swarthmore is very diverse ethnically and socio-economically, too.</p>
<p>To the OP, just reread your post #19. I don't think it's that people don't want to "tell" on their school. Perhaps it's that students are NOT friending or unfriending people based upon race. I don't think it rests as heavily on the minds of students when they seek friends or become distant from friends. In fact, I've been watching at the h.s. level and believe this upcoming generation to be the least racist in American history. WHen I ask my own kids about it, they say that these aren't criteria they use for making friends, all the while they are passionate...I mean passionate...for social justice.
If I were to ask myself, or you, how many of my closest friends are economic conservatives, I don't know the answer because that's not why I'd make or refuse their friendship. So that's just a random comparison. But think about it.
Anyway, I'm not sure I'd want lots of money paid out to social anthropologists (even though my cousin is one!) to run around filming and studying these habits scientifically.
I guess just use the statistics as an indicator, and then go visit the campuses and observe. Also among the students, I think a candid question will elicit a candid answer IRL.</p>
<p>Am so pleased to hear this about Swarthmore, MotherofTwo. Had guessed it but never heard it directly so couldn't report it here, not even anecdotally. Good to hear, always.</p>
<p>And oops, I realize I misspoke about Oberlin just now. It's not that they don't separate out the student academic stat's of college vs. musicians, thereby making the college looking less academically. It is this way: they distribute their resources differently to reflect the needs of the Conservatory musicians, and in so doing don't give out everything to the college students that would make them top-shelf over at USNWR.</p>
<p>I hope that's a more accurate way to say it. They are meeting the needs of their students, who are either in the college or the conservatory (a few in both). But this doesn't tickle the rubrics at USNWR for college resource allocation, quite so well as if the conservatory weren't there...which nobody would ever want! Can't you see it..a magazine ends up having a college shoo away the conservatory..not going to happen.</p>
<p>My statement was not based on published statistics, but rather on the close friends my daughter made this year. But then I looked up the published statistics from the Swarthmore website and saw that it is slightly less than 60% white non-international (e.g the numbers below add up to a little over 40%):</p>
<p>7.4% International
15.3% Asian American
9.5% Latino/a American
6.9% African American
0.7% Native American
0.4% Multiracial American</p>
<p><a href="http://www.swarthmore.edu/diversity.xml%5B/url%5D">http://www.swarthmore.edu/diversity.xml</a></p>
<p>so I get that you are only looking at "top"U's,but the listing is telling...its "diverse" only if you consider an Asian American presence the model of diversity.No other group goes above 10 or 11%.
S attends University of South Carolina,admittedly not "top" but it has the largest % of African American students of any state U in the USA. It truly looks diverse when you walk around the campus.
And D attended Arizona State, which was truly diverse in the # of Hispanics, and even Native Americans present on campus.</p>
<p>Hm. The lumping together of all those people as "whites" is strange, too. If I could sit down and talk all day with a Turkish person or Arab, that would expand my worldview and I'd consider my day diverse. Being Jewish myself, and often feeling the "otherness" or called upon to explain differences, I don't count for stats on diversity, either. I actually hate checking off "white" all the time, but I know that's necessary since I could pass, while a racial minority couldn't pass. </p>
<p>Still, don't Arabs, Turks and Jews make things diverse, too?</p>
<p>Sigh.</p>
<p>I think the categories the colleges use when they report this data is related to some kind of federal government program or something. Maybe someone else knows more about it. So, for example, as far as your example of a Jewish person and a Turkish person, obviously colleges do not ask for an applicant's religion or if their heritage is "French" or "Turkish" so they would not be able to provide a breakdown based on such criteria.</p>
<p>I understand. I'm thinking that for those who care a lot about "diversity" that might also mean to be on the lookout for how many students are disabled, LGBT, too. In other words, racial diversity isn't the only way a campus might feel "diverse" and open a student's mind towards wider thought.</p>
<p>Nobody should be asking those questions on an admission form, either. It would be more evident by a list of student organizations on the websites.</p>
<p>I guess a lot of the stats on race are driven by government grants. But for the OP's concern, to find a university where diversity is tangible, where kids "walk the walk, not just talk the talk.." then, I'm suggesting that diversity might reach into other realms, along with race. Diversity of physical ability, gender orientation, and so on impact a campus culture positively.</p>
<p>I agree totally. A person interested in other types of diversity than that reported in these statistics would have to investigate by visiting, speaking to people familiar with the college, or reading subjective writeups of the college, rather than just looking up statistics, so it would be a little more work to get that information.</p>
<p>We live in California. The San Francisco Bay Area. This is arguably the most diverse area of the country, at least in terms of numbers of different countries and races represented. However, we don't have much of an integrated African American population. It feels diverse here. And yet it also feels white. White and rich.</p>
<p>There are all kinds of goals to be posited in the search for diversity. In our case, as I think about it, if I were to sum it up, we are looking for schools where the dominant population isn't rich white kids who like to stick together and who might close out other groups and yet the classrooms are full of highly able students. Looking for differing points of views and mixed groups. Racial diversity is one way to get at that. Economic diversity is another. Country of origin or religion is another.</p>
<p>I will have S take a look at the University of South Carolina. Unfortunately he is set on no small schools.</p>
<p>As the mother, I'm just gathering data, statistical and qualitative alike. It is possible that I am setting the criteria incorrectly. But please all, give me the benefit of the doubt.</p>
<p>Alumother - Since your daughter goes to Princeton, I am curious. How does Princeton, for example, stack up on the "diversity" criterion as you and your son are defining it for the purpose of his college search?</p>
<p>Good question. Princeton is pretty diverse, in the numbers. But the feel of diversity on the campus is spotty. At full campus functions, i.e. dance performances, sports etc. it feels very diverse. Infinitely more so than in my day. But the eating clubs do appear to drive or at least support self-segregation. Most of the African American kids party at something called the Black Box - which is alcohol free. I haven't asked questions in more detail of D. For example, I do not know if the Asian kids or Hispanic kids or Middle Eastern kids hang together.</p>
<p>Again, I am not accusing anyone of racism. Just trying for a sort of anthropological exegesis of campus societies. For the benefit of my kid.</p>
<p>I was reluctant to bring this up, as I am a huge Princeton advocate, but so be it.</p>
<p>It's not racism - it's just a fact that the dynamics differ among campuses and that's why you are seeking this information.</p>
<p>i like how you are looking for a diverse school, yet still academic as a parent. i myself, a student, have done research as well. i refuse to go to a school which is not diverse enough for my standards. every time i think of a school to go to, i type it in at fastweb.com and i look at the race percentages... my parents could care less about the diversity... they think "i'm just going for an education anyway".... but i want to have a good social experience and enviornment.... unlike my current school which is about 93-94% caucasian and my old school 60% african american.... neither suite my liking.</p>
<p>I'm wondering if Columbia might please your S. It's as Ivy as Ivy gets...but its location is in Morningside Heights, on the Upper West Side of New York. Whenever he's not at his studies, he's in the most racially diverse city on the East Coast. He'd be a mile from the Apollo Theater in Harlem on 125th Street.
I have no idea about the interior dynamics at Columbia, but am just wondering if the location within a city might feel "edgey" in a positive, new way, coming from SF.<br>
Along those lines, U of Chicago, or UPenn also come to mind. At least you know at a place like Columbia that people who go there, if wealthy and white, have already thought through the fact that they are living what many consider (wrongly) a dangerous area. It certainly isn't, but I think maybe its location alongside Harlem might weed out racism among privileged students. Every now and then, someone posts on this board, "I considered Columbia but the location turned me off.." and that's exactly who your S could do without! </p>
<p>I could be TOTALLY full of it here; am reaching, trying to help.</p>
<p>OP, I apologize for not knowing more about you personally - you have may have shared in previous posts on ohter threads. Perhaps you could provide a bit more information about why your son has chosen "racial/ethnic diversity" as his barometer.</p>
<p>My son has two friends who grew up next door to one another - both lived in the same homes since birth - one caucasion, one african-american - in a mostly "white" suburban neighborhood. The african-american student wanted a "racially diverse" school and chose Stanford. </p>
<p>While he has found "racial diversity" - in fact, he laughs that his "apartment style roomates" are a revolving door of racial/ethnic diversity, he said the lack of political/intellectual diversity is "mindboggling. He believes he found more "diversity of opinion" in his large public non-racially diverse high school. </p>
<p>He said, if he had it to do over again, he might "lean toward" large "state" universities for their more widespread political/economic/intellectual diversity. But, then, he would have missed getting to know his Inuit roomate and family.</p>
<p>Reflectivemom - Can you be a little more clear about what the friend who goes to Stanford is saying about lack of diversity of opinion there? Is he saying that everyone is very liberal and that there is no conservative viewpoint, or something else? Thanks!</p>
<p>Our background isn't very illuminating, unfortunately:). We are white upper middle class. This is just my son's idea. And he's felt like this since he was pretty young. He did like the idea of New York City. He likes the idea of Philadelphia even better. And in the end, he may get lucky and get accepted to Princeton and take his sister's word for it that he can create for himself the kind of social environment he is looking for even if it's not the dominant one.</p>
<p>I'm curious about Stanford having little diversity of opinion too?</p>