<p>Part of the question, I think, derives from high school incidents rather than the college themselves. Things that may not be picked up by mainstream media but are heard in specific groups, such as Jewish students being made to say a Christian prayer and causing an outrage when they refused (apparently the adult thought it honestly “eucumenical”), or international students being shot/at because their English/lack thereof made them seem threatening (happened in Montana and Florida), policies toward Latino students who may not be documented (NJ, AL, GA), towards latinos in general (AZ), sorority/fraternity segregation (esp. Black/white), religious insensitivity. Those often happen in smaller towns accross the country. Then, there are serious problems. For instance, the shootings (/incidents/murders) in Florida and Ferguson led some African American students to simply cross off the entire State, not just because of what happened in one town, but because of the population’s reaction to it. Colleges in all these states are likely to be welcoming and of course no state has a monopoy on friendliness, yet it’ll be hard to “make up” for these examples if families have heard them and then heard them echoed again.
Overall, I’d say OP is right to wonder about particular colleges rather than worrying about States or regions.
In addition, race relations may be good but on intensely political campuses such as UCB or Oberlin they may be just another contentious topic to hone debate skills/fight about, whereas things may be bad yet never talked about at other colleges.</p>
<p>I was surprised to see Black Students only made up 2.6% first year students at Berkeley according to te chart linked to in #51.</p>