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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The other concept that seems to be missing here is that minority populations are quite well represented at most DC area private schools.

First, if you exclude financial aid (only for the purpose of calculating representativeness), you would start with a universe of people who can afford and choose to spend $50K+ per year per kid. You would be well in-bounds to say that the economic disparity between races is inherent founded in racism. That said, a private school is a private business that has no legal obligation to provide aid. Their choice to do so is only for the purpose of expanding the economic (and, accordingly, racial) diversity of their student body and community.  If you start with a universe of families who can afford to pay full retail, I do not believe any minority is particularly underrepresented at many schools.

If you bring in financial aid (in other words, reality), you can then look at the entirety of the population regardless of means.

The overall Washington DC MSA stats are:

Black or African American: 24%
Non-Hispanic White: 43%
Hispanic or Latino: 17%
Asian: 11%
Mixed and other: 6%

At our UNW school, more than half identify as being a “person of color.”   I think White and Asian Americans are slightly overrepresented and Hispanics and Blacks very slightly underrepresented (I think the Black population at our school is around 20%).

The punchlines in my opinion are:
1. Schools have every right to build whatever class they want.
2. I think they have generally done a damn good job at cobbling together different kids from all kids of backgrounds who fit together quite well.
3. To impute racism, you’d be saying that when two equally qualified kids apply, the white ones consistently are admitted. In this case, equally qualified means same grades, same ability to pay, same extracurriculars, same personality.

To me, it sounds like the OP doesn’t understand that it’s possible that their kid(s) were denied admission because other kids were preferable. They may have been more pleasant, smarter, a better athlete, wealthier, more interesting.

I have read nothing in these pages that support the thesis that the opacity of the admissions process is a veiled attempt to conceal unjust practices. 
 [/quote]

I would feel much more sympathetic to OP if she or her DD experienced racism. I am not white and certainly would relate. Instead it just seems like she didn’t agree with some of her friends’ kids not getting admitted, and thus has found an axe to grind with holistic admissions. The fact is, a lot of great kids get rejected from their first choice. That’s just life![/quote]

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