<p>Mini,</p>
<p>I remember when my daughter was in kindergarten and she told me about all of her friends having country houses and summer homes. She asked me if we were getting a summer home.</p>
<p>I told her that we already had one and the great thing is that we get to live in it during the fall winter and spring too!</p>
<p>Before my current two (one adopted from India), we helped to raise 5 others in what could best be described as "novel foster situations" in Philadelphia. Out of these 5, we had one go to Princeton, one Smith, one University of Leeds (UK), one a London business college. The 5th was brain damaged at birth, but has managed to live away from home and hold down a full-time job for the past 15 years. (He's the one we are proudest of.) All without any money to speak of. </p>
<p>I'm beginning to think about where my next brood is going to come from. (Of course, if I can figure out how I can live in India full-time, I've already got 'em! I get to spend 3 weeks with them in January - whoopee!)</p>
<p>Sybbie-</p>
<p>The article says that applications are sharply down at State Us for African Americans. I think I recall that Harvard and Princeton were up for African Americans. Does this mean that African Americans are moving away from the middle....either going to top schools OR HBCUs.....and straying from everything in between? From my vantage, that's what I'm seeing.....they're either going to top 20/Ivies OR HBCUs. It feels like the decision is that they want to be satisfied in one of two ways....either by being in a top school or by being in the tradition of the HBCU where 2 prior generations have gone and done well. </p>
<p>How about all of the 17 yr old black kids with dads and grandfathers, doctors/lawyers, who are "Morehouse Men"...it's hard to send these kids to someplace where they'll be ridiculed and told that they don't belong and only got in because of Affirmative Action. The only thing that's going to be better, to them, than the tradition of the school that has done so well for their family is someplace in the top 20....anything else might just not be worth it.....socially and academically.</p>
<p>Now, if State Us decline and the top 20s an d HBCus don't increase, I would like to know where they're going......</p>
<p>Finances clearly play a role. But there may also be an issue for African American students trying to find a comfort zone at college, some place where they are not going to be "different" yet someplace where not everyone is the same. If that makes sense. Just as we all advise our kids to look for a great fit -- the issue can get complicated by what is a great fit ethnically, racially, or culturally. </p>
<p>For example, I'd love some advice on this. I'm trying to help my multiracial niece add to her list of colleges. She's a B/B+ student who has grown up in a white middle, middle class area --the only kid who looks African American in her high school. She wants to find a college at which she can both explore that side of her heritage and find lots of other kids like herself, but she doesn't seem to want one of the historically black colleges, perhaps because she feels she wouldn't fit in. Because she's tired of being a minority of one, she also won't look at liberal arts colleges and wants to be in a city. She said she'd like to go some place that's close to 50% African-American and I told her I didn't think such a place exists. I did send her the list of colleges that's compiled annually by a magazine (is it Black Enterprise?) and a link to a website that advises African American high school students (which really tries to steer them to the historically black colleges.) But any more ideas would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>My daughter's cousin (In the who's your people context, on her father's side) is a recent Morehouse grad. Her grandparents being southerners are so proud because if because they do feel that he has held on to his roots. </p>
<p>Morehouse, Spelman, Howard , FAMU and Hampton are considered the "IVY League" of the HBCUs. Students who attend there know that top companies and graduate schools are looking to increase the number of African Americans in the workplace and in their programs coming there to recruit because they that they will be there.</p>
<p>Sometime being in a HBSC is not great fit for everyone because the social issues and a great divide between the haves and have nots are there just as it is at white schools, maybe more so because of the conspicuous consumption, and being "on' all of the time. New Yorkers think that southerners are slow, southerners think that New Yorkers feel the world revolves around them. You have the whole light skin/ Dark skin/ good hair thing going on. And yes the "Who's your People? (My father, my grandfather, my greatgrandfather are all more house men yada, yada, yada)</p>
<p>For my own child, she could not get into all of that while spending a lot of time at Howard and Spelman she felt they were not the places for her (much to the chagrin of many of her aunts and uncles on both sides)</p>
<p>Sac:</p>
<p>Would some of the colleges located in the South have more of what your niece is seeking? I'm thinking of Emory, Tulane, Xavier (an African-American classmate of my S is there). Larger urban universities in the Northeast would also probably have a critical mass of African-American students so that your niece would not feel isolated. Temple in Philadelphia might fit the bill, as would some of the City Colleges in NY or Northeastern in Boston. And what about some of the Cal State campuses?</p>
<p>One of Sybbie's comments struck a chord. The availability of goods and services aimed at certain groups--in this case African-Americans--must be a factor in college selection. It's no surprise that small LACS in rural or suburban places are less likely to be able to offer such goods and services. Furthermore, if a student needs to work, it is better to be in a city than in a rural area where the only employer is likely to be the univerisity.</p>
<p>Momsdream:</p>
<p>I think there is another factor at work.</p>
<p>There were a group of colleges and universities who were "early adaptors" of affirmative action and were quite successful at increasing their African-American enrollment in the 1970s and 1980s while many schools sat on the sidelines.</p>
<p>As time marched on, many of the heel-dragging schools have finally gotten with the program and instituted their own affirmative action recruitment programs. Examples of fairly late arrivals to the party include a number of prestigious Southern schools -- places like Vanderbilt, Davidson, and probably UVa. Add to this the rapid expansion of junior colleges into secondary 4-year campuses of state university systems and black students have a lot more options, many of them perhaps more comfortable than going away to some "fancy" school.</p>
<p>With a fairly small pool of high-stat applicants, the competition has grown quite intense. Ironically, some of the historically most aggressive affirmative action schools now see declining Af-Am enrollment -- not because they are doing anything differently, but because of increased competition for a limited number of students.</p>
<p>I think it's possible to say that Affirmative Action (as presently practiced) really hasn't worked as well as advertised. This question was danced around by the Supreme Court majority opinion this past summer which basically held that racial preferences in college admissions were a necessary evil for at least another 20 years. My concern is that the "band-aid" approach allows educators to ignore the underlying societal factors that prevent larger numbers of Af-Am students from being interested in elite colleges in the first place. It seems to me that there is a lot of self-congratulations in the academic world when they successfully target and recruit kids from an extremely narrow slice of the Af-Am population.</p>
<p>There almost seems to be a disconnection between successful elite college grads and the larger Af-Am community. For example, it is troubling to me that Af-Americans in the most powerful positions (Sec. of State, Supreme Court Justice, National Security Advisor) are not applauded as role models. Maybe Nike needs to introduce a "Colin Powell" model baskeball shoe!</p>
<p>She wants to find a college at which she can both explore that side of her heritage and find lots of other kids like herself, but she doesn't seem to want one of the historically black colleges, perhaps because she feels she wouldn't fit in. Because she's tired of being a minority of one, she also won't look at liberal arts colleges and wants to be in a city."</p>
<p>In a city. 25% AA, but not an historically Black College. Lots of AA support. Very, very strong financial aid. Academically topnotch (and intense.)</p>
<p>But a LAC. Agnes Scott College in Atlanta.</p>
<p>Tulane is 9% African American but Loyola of New orleans (right next door to Tulane on Saint Charles Avenue) is 11% and 10% hispanic with 68% Caucasion. </p>
<p>It would be interesting to know if the State U students have gone to Private U or Commuter U--or they might be one and the same. I know WUSTL puts a priority on local kids.</p>
<p>The title of the thread knocked me back though. Wouldn't it be nice if it were the reverse?</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>The article says that applications are sharply down at State Us for African Americans. I think I recall that Harvard and Princeton were up for African Americans. Does this mean that African Americans are moving away from the middle....either going to top schools OR HBCUs.....and straying from everything in between? From my vantage, that's what I'm seeing.....they're either going to top 20/Ivies OR HBCUs. It feels like the decision is that they want to be satisfied in one of two ways....either by being in a top school or by being in the tradition of the HBCU where 2 prior generations have gone and done well. <<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>These schools are less academically demanding and are better "fits" for them in order for these underprepared blacks to graduate and go on to graduate and professional schools. These less competitive colleges, including the HBCUs, are academic matches, as well as psychological matches for these blacks with lower stats, giving them a better chance to finish.</p>
<p>The drop in blacks, especially among the institutions which use race based AA, is explained by the miniscule number of top black students who are EQUALLY QUALIFIED to their fellow students at these top institutions, many of which are low tuition elite public colleges, such as UC Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, U.of Texas-Austin, the U.of Michigan, and the U.of Washington. The lesser qualified blacks may have serious reservations, other than economic ones, in applying to elite colleges for which they are not academically matched or for which they are underprepared and not fitted. There simply are not enough academically qualified blacks to attend the elite colleges. This presents a "cascading effect" in all the selective colleges to the less selective colleges, where there is immense competition for the pitiful low numbers of qualified blacks. The solution for the problem of the scarcity of qualified blacks is not race based AA, but to better prepare blacks, at the k-12 level, before they enter the elite colleges or any college for that matter.</p>
<p>sac-</p>
<p>I had a conversation yesterday with a professional in the field of sending the most talented black students to the best colleges and he couldn't say enough good things about Stanford! He said Stanford is HOT for African Americans.....</p>
<p>You're right in that she's not going to find a place where the population is 50% African American. She's going to have to find a palce where there is a decent AfAm population (7% or greater) and seek out a community within..maybe by pledging one of the black sororities (AKA or DST). </p>
<p>IMHO, parents of bi-racial children have an obligation to seek out communities in which to raise their children with an exposure ot both sides of their culture. Unfortunately, your niece is still going to be a "minority".....even in a black school. She's got to learn to walk the fence....which is hard to learn at 18....hence my statement about raising them in certain community.</p>
<p>I think there was an article recently about how many of the black students at the top colleges are not actually African American, but Carribean or African. I don't know how that fits into the equation.</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions. I had suggested both Xavier (because she's interested in med school and they do well with that) and Loyola in New Orleans (because my son's friend goes there) but they are too small for her. I also suggested she look at Northeastern and U Md at College Park. Temple might be too much of a commuter school, or am I wrong? I don't think she has a prayer at Stanford.</p>
<p>And yes, momsdream, it would have been nice if she had grown up in a different community, including one like the Bay Area, where I live. But she's in the Northwest, which is where her parents met and stayed and worked, so there were not a whole lot of options.</p>
<p>I'm really curious about the 1800 AfAms who scored above 1300. Where are they going to school? There are so few , so it shouldn't be that hard to track.</p>
<p>I also wonder if the issue is partly due to the lack of motivation to achieve anyting above 1300 because it isn't necessary for the student to achieve their goals and the goals of their families...HBCUs. If all of the family discussion is about Billy getting into Morehouse and his sister getting into Spelman....why keep retaking the tests when the medians for these schools are 1000 and 1100, respectively.</p>
<p>Last year, I met a law professor at the University of South Carolina who went from Tuskegee to Harvard Law. Saturday at the HY game I met a lawyer who went from FAMU to Yale Law. These low SAT schools are not necessarily a bad pathway for a lot of AfAms. They have produced many, many accomplished AfAms. Some high SAT AfAms have transferred undergrad from MIT to FAMU, succeeded more than they would have at MIT, and then headed back to MIT for grad school.</p>
<p>Good point Zuma. I have to say that I personally feel that the path you've described has worked for many, many people that I know....I can't imagine that they would have had better lives, more success, more wealth from going to HYPSM in the first place...And guess what their kids are doing....the same thing!</p>
<p>sac,
Loyola of Chicago? Golden Gate University? Hunter College in New York City (18%)? Stony Brook (SUNY)? University of Miami (10% with 27% hispanic)? Those are bigger than Loyola of New orleans--although LONO has 4000 students--50% from out of state. Is that too small? Sure is a great city....</p>
<p>As a black student, I'll give a little insight.</p>
<p>First, financially, my parents cannot afford much. Yes, they're middle-class, but they're already paying loans on my first sister's education (she's a sophomore) even with a 6,000 scholarship, 6,000 is a lot for them to pay a year. I'll probably end up at a state university where I'll recieve tons of merit aid.</p>
<p>Secondly, I am basically a child prodigy in my family. I work hard for my grades, and I have earned my success. This has led to a lot of pressure to go to an HBCU, because that's where my family attended. </p>
<p>Thirdly, I have been called "white" all my life. I like snow, no, I love snow. I adore snow. I hate hot weather. Most of my friends are white, but you have to understand
blacks only make up .5% of my school's population, and only about 1/4 of those are in my grade. I am tired of being called white. I am proud of who I am. I am not white, and I would be happy if no one ever called me that again.</p>
<p>Fourthly, I want to go somewhere where people will know I got in on merit, not on the color of my skin. It's not that I'm against AA, but rather I don't want people saying it's the reason,when I am a strong strong student.</p>
<p>Hope that shows a student's perspective</p>
<p>Congratulations on earning your choices, celebrian. Where do you want to go to college?</p>
<p>My dream would be Yale, but realistically thinking, probably Purdue.</p>
<p>The sad thing about the HBCU's is that if you get in, you are going to have to pay as there is there is really no need-based financial aid, the merit money that is available is used to woo that same small aplicant pool of 1800 students who everyone wants. I remember D recieving all kinds of letters for scholarhips she would be eligible for at Howard and Spelman. Those to can afford to pay pay the full board, others are taking out massive loans at schools where many students do not graduate in 4 years.</p>
<p>Her friend who is at Spelman got nothing as far as financial aid with the exception of work study and a $2600 subsidized loan on cost of attendance of $23,000. While she got an 1100 which is over the 850 average SAT score for African Americans it did not place her in scholarship range. After applying for scholarships through Coca-Cola, the Gates foundation, UNCF, none of it panned out because did have the grades.</p>
<p>Even being accepted at Howard, Hampton, Grambling, she got nothing, she got $5,000 from Xavier.</p>