Hello everyone!
I’ve been trying to research the social scene at SMU. However, there isn’t too much online about student life, especially for Black Students. Would someone be willing to comment on the Black experience on campus? Is the campus as preppy as it seems? Thanks for your help!
SMU is a preppy school and greek life is huge on campus. I don’t know much about the actual black experience at SMU but the Association of Black Students due have a Twitter page and they encourage students to DM them for information.
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Thanks for your help! I’ll make sure to send them a dm.
I lived down the street from SMU for a couple years and listened to black SMU alumni talk about their experiences. Follow the hashtag #BlackatSMU and reachout to the SMU Black Alumni organization @hewanyoseph23
SMU is pretty preppy and segregated of course. People of different races and ethnicities usually socialize and party differently which is not a bad thing in itself. The black SMU alumni that grew up in very white and conservative communities seemed to enjoy it the most. The remaining ones that grew up in more diverse/black and progressive communities didn’t like it very much and only stayed b/c they received a really good academic scholarship.
Black greek life dominates the small black social scene on campus (SMU blacks = 5%). But unlike the white Greeks they don’t have houses so they throw less events and on a smaller scale. Off campus, SMU blacks tend to frequent Deep Ellum and Downtown the most … most of the white students tend to really enjoy Uptown and Lower Greenville nightlife and culture.
Similar private schools I hear blacks seem to more generally really like are Rice & Emory.