Racial Disparity at Georgetown

[Madgesdiq]

Disgraceful post, should have been moved to the trash bin as opposed to the Blue & Grey Board.

[kchoya]

I think I should have been on the basketball team so that it accurately represented the large percentage of the student population who sucked at basketball but still trekked up to Yates everyday. Why have a basketball team full of people who can dunk?

[Big Dog]

zomourning1789 said:

As I watch the NCAA tournament, I find myself wondering why Georgetown refuses to admit more black students. The basketball team is completely black and has been the face of the university for decades, yet the administration feels that it can continue to trot out a team full of black men to make money for the university, and advertise for the university, while it admits virtually all white kids as regular students on campus.

I think my alma mater needs to take a look at its admissions policies and try to be more inclusive. Having 7 black men and a black coach represent a university full of whites is ridiculous. Would a 15% black population at a school in a city that predominantly black be OK? It seems reasonable. I thought when I graduated things would continue to get better but I don't think many new opportunities have opened up for aspiring black students unless they can shoot a basketball or run for the track team. If the basketball team was representative of the student body it would have a single black player, how ridiculous is that.

As you watch the tournament, point to me the number of schools whose teams perfectly reflect the demographics of their university, and then think about whether something like that should even make a difference. The fact is that in many cases the players on the floor (white, black, whatever) for a school might very well not have had the opportunity to attend the university without their basketball skills. Should players only be able to play who reflect the academic prowess of the student body too?

Georgetown has one of the most diverse student bodies of any university in the world. But apparently only certain kinds count in your mind.

[RBHoya]

I had a debate like this over at the Maryland forum with some guy a couple weeks back.

Georgetown does with it's basketball team the same thing that every other major university does with their football and basketball teams... They put the best players who qualify and want to attend on the floor.

On ethnic diversity in the student body, Georgetown has like 8% African-American first year students. This is on track with other top private schools like Yale, Penn, Duke, Northwestern, BC, etc. And it's quite a bit higher than a place like Nova or Notre Dame.

I just think the idea that the basketball (or football, or any other team) should look on paper just like everyone else in the school to be silly. Why? Most people at this school are also short-average sized, very intelligent/studious, etc.... You're not going to find good athletes in that bunch... And if it's silly to make the team look more like the players, so why aim to make the students look more like the team?

I'm sure the school would love to have more qualified black students, but they're not going to take students simply because they're black. If they take unqualified students based on race, that's not really fair to anybody (school, student, or non-black students).

Would you feel better if we trotted out a team that looked like Notre Dames, with one or two black guys surrounded by a bunch of white guys? I mean, would that make you feel better? I never really understand the logic.

[hilltopper2000]

Most. Ignorant. Post. Ever.

Zo -- You know absolutely NOTHING about GU admissions if you think that the University does not do everything in its power to admit as many African-American students as possible. The signifcant gap in academic achievement between rich and poor and black and white and privileged and underprivileged in this country is staggering. The problems are far too complicated for message board discussion but they are the reason GU has such a small percentage of African-American students (and professors and administrators, for that matter). Programs like D.C. Schools and, indeed, the Community Scholars are ways in which the Unversity is playing its part in addressing what is a major social challenge for our generation.

If you are going to throw around accusations about GU "refusing" to admit qualified black students please bring forth evidence. From my experience working in GU admissions, that is just unthinkable.

[HoyaOnBothSides]

bigdog said:

Georgetown has one of the most diverse student bodies of any university in the world. But apparently only certain kinds count in your mind.

Not that I disagree with the rest of your post, or the majority of posters on this thread, but let's not kid ourselves..did anyone really feel like they were among a really diverse student body, much less one of the most diverse IN THE WORLD? Coming from New York, I certainly felt Georgetown was rather homogenous.

Even the rankings prove otherwise: We're relatively low at 27%, around 5-10% lower than most schools I would consier on par academically with Georgetown.

collegeapps.about.com/od/rankings/a/u_minorities.htm

[tgo]

rbhoya said:

that's not really fair to anybody (school, student, or non-black students).

it also isnt fair to the black student who wouldnt have qualified without their skin color. They will likely be in classes with professors who dont grade by color. would you take an average 5th grade student and throw her in to a high school english class because it didnt have enough girls in it? how would that help the 5th grader? how would the class benefit from her inclusion? you cant tell me that admitting unprepared black students doesnt also help to perpetuate negative stereotypes among students of other backgrounds who see the only black students as not prepared for their studies or able to contribute at the same level as those who got in based on their intellect and achievements.

if you want to talk about the economic/class issues at GU then you have a discussion, due to the rising costs GU is more and more becoming a place for the haves. As an interviewer i have had several incredible kids get in to GU but not attend since GU couldnt come close to matching the aid package of Stanford and other schools. this is a serious problem that is only getting worse.

[bsloane]

I think the point being made is that it seems Georgetown actively seeks out blacks as student-athletes, yet does not seek them out as simply students (8%, which inludes aforementioned athletes). Considering Georgetown's location in a pre-dominantly black city, one would expect blacks to at least be the leading minority represented. They're not. No numbers I saw even mentioned Arab or Persian descent, so blacks may actually be the third-largest minority.

I'm not exactly sure why anyone would be so quick to dismiss the questions: Why does a 75% white school have a %75+ black basketball team? What does it mean? What improvements could we make to better our university? However, acting as if this is a contrived issue with no real relevance only reinforces the need to ask such questions. Like no one has ever thought about it before or joked about it.

I, for one, think that there is a possibility that GU could fill up the same 8% of the school with blacks simply from DC and the surrounding area if they looked for them the same way they looked for ballers...

And RB, not to pick on you, many of the schools you mentioned with small-minority populations, like the Ivies, pretty much field a bunch of white guys in shorts. As for Notre Dame, I for one would at least feel that my university wasn't whoring itself out for the riches of BCS money that we don't even get. Look at Duke, Stanford, Notre Dame, schools that generally don't simply take qualifiers, but seek out athletes, white and black, that are both talented on the court and in the classroom. That is the crux of the issue; if you want to have a team like ours at a school like ours, I think you have to find either more smart white players or more smart black students...

[Jack]

hoyaonbothsides said:

bigdog said:

Georgetown has one of the most diverse student bodies of any university in the world. But apparently only certain kinds count in your mind.

Not that I disagree with the rest of your post, or the majority of posters on this thread, but let's not kid ourselves..did anyone really feel like they were among a really diverse student body, much less one of the most diverse IN THE WORLD? Coming from New York, I certainly felt Georgetown was rather homogenous.

Even the rankings prove otherwise: We're relatively low at 27%, around 5-10% lower than most schools I would consier on par academically with Georgetown.

collegeapps.about.com/od/rankings/a/u_minorities.htm

Others have already made most of the important points to be made here, so I won't pile on Zo's total ignorance, but I do believe this particular set of numbers is very misleading. Plain and simple, Georgetown's minority percentage lags because Georgetown is not as dominated by Asian students as most other top 25 schools, and that is probably due to the Catholic factor and the lack of engineering/hard sciences.

It is undeniable that only a small percentage of the Asian population is Catholic, and it is not just a stereotype that the most talented Asian-American students are typically drawn to the math/science powerhouses. Even so, Asians represent a higher % of the student body at GU than they do in the overall US population.

In terms of % African-American students, Georgetown blows away every other Catholic school in the country and lags behind only a few of the best non-HBCU's (Stanford, for one) primarily for the financial reasons already cited.

Likewise, GU does extremely well in Hispanic student numbers, and believe it or not, not all that well in terms of true foreign citizens- turns out engineering programs are also a big draw for that group, moreso than an elite School of Foreign Service, and the problem is compounded because GU has limited financial aid available to non-US citizens.

[HoyaOnBothSides]

jack said:

hoyaonbothsides said:

Not that I disagree with the rest of your post, or the majority of posters on this thread, but let's not kid ourselves..did anyone really feel like they were among a really diverse student body, much less one of the most diverse IN THE WORLD? Coming from New York, I certainly felt Georgetown was rather homogenous.

Even the rankings prove otherwise: We're relatively low at 27%, around 5-10% lower than most schools I would consier on par academically with Georgetown.

collegeapps.about.com/od/rankings/a/u_minorities.htm

Others have already made most of the important points to be made here, so I won't pile on Zo's total ignorance, but I do believe this particular set of numbers is very misleading. Plain and simple, Georgetown's minority percentage lags because Georgetown is not as dominated by Asian students as most other top 25 schools, and that is probably due to the Catholic factor and the lack of engineering/hard sciences.

It is undeniable that only a small percentage of the Asian population is Catholic, and it is not just a stereotype that the most talented Asian-American students are typically drawn to the math/science powerhouses. Even so, Asians represent a higher % of the student body at GU than they do in the overall US population.

In terms of % African-American students, Georgetown blows away every other Catholic school in the country and lags behind only a few of the best non-HBCU's (Stanford, for one) primarily for the financial reasons already cited.

Likewise, GU does extremely well in Hispanic student numbers, and believe it or not, not all that well in terms of true foreign citizens- turns out engineering programs are also a big draw for that group, moreso than an elite School of Foreign Service, and the problem is compounded because GU has limited financial aid available to non-US citizens.

Sorry, but your post is far more misleading that those stats:
All I claimed was that Georgetown, on an absolute basis, was not a very diverse school, and could do much better.


Let’s break it down:

#1 – Sorry to tell ya, but Asians are part of a diverse student body. They do count. Georgetown is a very white university.

Regardless,

#2 – Let’s look at Hispanics. Extremely well? Not really. Do they prefer Engineering programs like you, PC or not, claim Asians do?

Well, MIT is 12% Hispanic.

Small sampling includes:
Harvard 8%
U Chicago 8%
Notre Dame 6%
Cal Tech 6%
Princeton 6%
Georgetown 5%

#3 African Americans. Georgetown at 7%, quite mediocre. Duke has 11%. ‘Nuff said.

#4 Let’s compare a few schools:
Georgetown:
% Minority: 27%
African American: 7%
Asian: 10%
Hispanic: 5%

Duke
Minority: 29%
African American: 11%
Asian: 12%
Hispanic: 6%

UPenn
% Minority: 40%
African American: 7%
Asian: 17%
Hispanic: 8%
Native American: 1%

Notre Dame
% Minority: 19%
African American: 3%
Asian: 4%
Hispanic: 7%
Native American: 1%

Are we happy with being better than Notre Dame, or other catholic universities? I'd hope we are striving for something better. That's all I'm saying.

[Jack]

Why should Georgetown's basketball coach have to be concerned with recruiting a team that "looks like" the student body? That should be the last thing JT3 has to worry about. I am pretty sure that in addition to being blacker than the average student, GU ballplayers are taller, faster, stronger, better shooters, etc. None of those characteristics have anything to do with how they perform in the classroom.

I have no doubt that JT3 is every bit as interested in white players who can help his team as black players, and more interested in A students than C students, but he also has some real disadvantages built into recruiting the very best of those kids. The fact that Duke gets the best white players is not particularly meaningful- they also get the best black players, because all they are looking for is the best players of any color. JT3 should operate in the same fashion.

At the same time, why should Georgetown be worried about making its student body look more like its basketball team? Georgetown desires and actively and affirmatively pursues diversity in its student body, but it is never a matter of simply admitting more students of color. That does not make the school a better place by itself and it does not even necessarily help those students. I assure you that if GU admitted and enrolled 8% of its class from the DC public schools, more than half of those students would fail out without significant help, such as the support provided by the community scholars program.

That program is designed to help first generation college bound students of all backgrounds to succeed at Georgetown, and it may include many basketball players or other athletes, but also includes many valedictorians of inner city and rural high schools from around the country, kids with potential but lacking in some necessary preparation. I challenge anyone to find a similarly comprehensive and inclusive program at any Ivy League school. Such a program makes GU's commitment to diversity real, but it is also expensive to run and typically works with only 50-75 students in each class.

On Edit: Just to be clear, this is a response more to bsloane and Zo. HoBS is right that we can probably do better, but I firmly believe it has a lot more to do with money than with the efforts/intentions of those working at the university.

[bsloane]

Jack,
I never said make every class 8% from DC Public schools. What I actually said was:

I, for one, think that there is a possibility that GU could fill up the same 8% of the school with blacks simply from DC and the surrounding area if they looked for them the same way they looked for ballers...

So, my question is not will the top 8% of DC public schools students succeed at GU. My question is between Baltimore and Richmond could we court those kids the same way we do kids from private schools in the Northeast, mid-atlantic, Chicago, etc. etc, etc...

That was my only point.

TGO actually made the most important point on this topic: Why are we losing black kids who whould be here to Stanford and other schools? If this is a money issue, then why don't we start talking about ways to make sure we have enough schollies for jump-shooters and bookworms alike? We sure do a good job wrangling money from Arabs and they seem to be attending in increasing numbers. Let's get Russell Simmons on the phone...

[hilltopper2000]

Zo -- I don't know how to begin to unpack everything in this response, but I think it would help to clarify that what raised the ire of many on this board was your explicit assertion that GU avoids admitting minority students and instead prefers white students. This is inflamatory, insulting and untrue. Now, you write about "making a concerted effort to attract more black students." This is a different position altogether and one about which reasonable people can disagree. Your original post did show an ignorance of admissions at GU.

I guess I don't see anything wrong with a pre-dominantly white school being represented by black athletes. This doesn't make me uncomfortable. I wouldn't be upset if we had a black president or a black provost. That seems fine to me. Is it wrong for lilly-white Brown to have a black woman as president?

I think our most famous alumnus is unquestionably Bill Clinton -- who is not demographically representative of GU. How many white Southern Baptists did you know at GU? I had one friend from Arkansas. Yet, I'm proud that he went to GU.

I hope Roy is proud of his accomplishments and proud to be a Hoya. He is absolutely one of the most popular students on campus. He went to a predominantly white high school so I'm sure he is used to interacting with white privileged students. He seems like a nice kid and I hope he will be a loyal alumnus after taking GU to three consecutive national campionships. If Howard's hypothetical all-white team had as much success as our Hoyas, I think they'd be beloved on that campus too.

[CTHoya08]

Regarding Roy. He went to Georgetown Prep, a mostly white white Jesuit prep school. He knew what Georgetown would be like and chose to come here, so clearly, he's comfortable with the environment here.

[Jack]

bsloane said:

Jack,
I never said make every class 8% from DC Public schools. What I actually said was:

I, for one, think that there is a possibility that GU could fill up the same 8% of the school with blacks simply from DC and the surrounding area if they looked for them the same way they looked for ballers...

So, my question is not will the top 8% of DC public schools students succeed at GU. My question is between Baltimore and Richmond could we court those kids the same way we do kids from private schools in the Northeast, mid-atlantic, Chicago, etc. etc, etc...

That was my only point.

TGO actually made the most important point on this topic: Why are we losing black kids who whould be here to Stanford and other schools? If this is a money issue, then why don't we start talking about ways to make sure we have enough schollies for jump-shooters and bookworms alike? We sure do a good job wrangling money from Arabs and they seem to be attending in increasing numbers. Let's get Russell Simmons on the phone...

Sorry for putting words into your mouth, I don't want to do it again, so I will ask: Do you believe Georgetown puts as much effort into recruiting white students from prep schools as it does in recruiting ballers? Do you believe GU puts as much effort into recruiting anyone as it does into recruiting ballers? I hope you do not, and I want you to think about the difficulty and expense of that type of effort, and how much benefit it brings.

Now what GU does do is put more effort into recruiting underrepresented minorities than it does with any other group outside of athletes, and also affords them extra consideration in the admissions process to the extent they bring added diversity to campus.

What Georgetown is up against is a very small pool that every top schools wants a part of, and less money than wealthier peers (like Stanford and Duke) for financial aid in attracting a population that is on average more needy than the stereotypical white prep school kid. Raising money to improve financial aid for all students (not just minorities, which would be questionable both legally and ethically in my mind) is a top priority for the next capital campaign, but we are not in a position to buy the top students in any ethnic group at this point, and at the same time we are not interested in admitting kids who will struggle just to add to diversity stats.

[SoCalHoya]

Just for the record, I am a minority graduate of Georgetown. As an alumni admissions interviewer, I work with the admissions department every year to attract the best and brightest, especially students of color. This is a passion of mine. Georgetown, like most of its academic peers, puts in a lot of time and effort to make this happen. I think we do pretty damn well and am proud of Georgetown's efforts and reputation, but we can certainly do better. If you are willing to post your concerns here on this subject, perhaps you would be willing to help us out with ideas, time, expertise, etc. If you are willing to help, please message me. I'd be happy to discuss things with you further.

[bsloane]

Some good points, and as to your questions: Yes, I believe that the fifteen students on the basketball team were recruited as heavily as 15 white students from prep schools. To recruit 15 black kids, as the argument seems to me, would require a greater expenditure than recruiting the previous two combined.

I also realize that basketball has much different resources to recruit their 15 kids (3-4 per year) than admissions does to get their 15 (Although it never hurts to take 10 or so kids from one high school to lighten the load. Kidding.).

I guess my point is, in a round-about way, who cares about a new MSB building or a boathouse? Let's do something more practical with our money if there's so little of it.

[lichoya68]

SOCAL HOYA GOOD POST FROM SOMEONE THAT KNOWS... SECOND POINT PLEASE DONT FORGET KENNY IZZO AND SEAD WHO ARE MEMBERS OF THIS TEAM. AND LASTLY I THINK THERE WAS A STUDY OF STUDENTS FEELING THAT THEIR SCHOOL WHICH WAS NOT A TRADITIONAL MINORITY BLACK SCHOOL AND THEY RATED THEIR EXPERIENCE AND I BELIEVE GU CAME OUT NEAR THE TOP LIKE THE FIRST FEW ANYONE KNOW THAT STUDY GO HOYAS ONE AND ALL BEAT FLORIDA ON FRIDAY....

[utraquehoya]

Georgetown does try to draw on local minority students. Its Community Scholars Program was established just for that purpose.

www3.georgetown.edu/centers/cmsa/scholarships/

In the last couple of decades, the program has expanded nationally. It's a great program, and certainly demonstrates Georgetown's commitment to attracting capable minority students.

Student applicants that fit the profile (i.e., minority from a poor socio-economic background) and who might not get in through the "normal" application committees are turned over to a special committee which examines the applications, looking for students who can make it at Georgetown.

That last concern is more complicated than some might think. It's certainly not a question of whether minority applicants have less intelligence, but whether they have the kind of academic potential that will allow them to overcome the impoverished and limited academic training they have received until that point.

Community scholars (as the students who are part of this program are called) sometimes have a lot of stuff to overcome. A few have addicts as parents, have been molested, raped, abused, have been homeless. Many never have had encouragement to believe in their own potential or any kind of role models for academic success. They arrive at Georgetown often feeling alienated from the dominate prep atmosphere (a feeling they share with white kids from poor backgrounds).

Georgetown provides these students with mentors and special summer classes, along with courses during their first year at Georgetown geared toward providing them with the necessary study tools they'll need to survive. It's a big investment on Georgetown's part. Even with those resources, some of these students leave Georgetown for various reasons.

Could Georgetown do more? Expand the program? I guess if there were more money available, but the problem is deeper/larger than what Georgetown can do. It has a lot to do with the socio-economically impoverished regions in which many minority students are raised and the social expectations which their surrounding culture gives to them about higher education.

Part of the problem of minority admission is interwined with the way our society treats the poor; the problem is national in scale as must be the solution.

[Cambridge]

Some thoughts, as I am no expert on this question, but intrigued:

1) Georgetown is a Catholic school and presumably has a much higher percentage of Catholic students in its population than the nation as a whole -- although I'm sure (as has been stated in numerous threads on this board before) there are some who would like this number to increase too.

2) What is the current census breakdown of African Americans as % of the population?

3) What percentage of them are Catholic?

4) We seem to attrack students predominantly from the Tri State Area (New Jersey, New York, Connecticut) and the Mid Atlantic (Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia). Not sure how this effects everything...but I'd be curious if this impacts the numbers in some way.

5) There is a strange paradoxical impression by most people on what kind of school Georgetown is. By that I mean, growing up in downtown Richmond VA, many people thought of Georgetown as a "black school" because their only impression of the school was the basketball team. However, out in CA and in New England (other places I have lived since) everyone thinks the school is completely white and everyone is Catholic -- a la Notre Dame.

6) I think most people have absolutely no idea how much financial aid is out there. My brothers both went to public school in downtown Richmond VA where they were 2 of about 10 white kids. My mom said that had she not known because of going through the whole financial aid process with me...she would never have known how much is available or even what the process is. The truth is, a lot of really improverished kids from my neighborhood had the impression that they couldn't afford to go to college -- whereas in a strange way they actually had the best chance to get a free ride if they had the grades.

Anyways, these are obviously really random thoughts...and I don't really have an agenda.