I wanted to post a letter that was recently sent to my alma mater student newspaper. I thought how timely it was regarding our discussions on education and racial/social/economic prejudices.
To the Editor,
I am the president of the Smith Club of Westchester County. I enjoy reading the Sophian online because it helps me stay abreast of developments at the school.
I read your article about [President] Carol [Christ]'s resignation and it had some interesting statistics. It mentioned the percentage increase in the population of women of color and foreign students. The gist of the article was that one of Carol's objectives coming into the position was to increase diversity and the article gave statistics that showed that she did.
As someone who has followed admissions for many years, I can tell you how the school is viewed by students in Westchester and Fairfield Counties. First, these counties are some of the wealthiest in the country. The children have parents who are highly educated and accomplished and have high household incomes. The children are programmed from day one to get into Ivy League schools.
To this demographic, Smith is a safety school. Also, very few of these students want to go to a single sex school. With the exception of Wellesley, it is not hard to get into the Seven Sisters any more. The reason why Wellesley is more selective is because it is smaller than Smith and in a better geographic location – Boston beats Northampton.
The people who are attending Smith these days are A) lesbians or B) international students who get financial aid or C) low-income women of color who are the first generation in their family to go to college and will go to any school that gives them enough money. Carol emphasizes that this is one of her goals, and so that's why the school needs more money for scholarships or D) white heterosexual girls who can't get into Ivy League schools.
Smith no longer looks at SATs because if it did, it would have to report them to U.S. News & World Report. Low-income black and Hispanic students generally have lower SATs than whites or Asians of any income bracket. This is an acknowledged fact because they don't have access to expensive prep classes or private tutors.
To accomplish [President Christ's] mission of diversity, the school is underweighting SAT scores. This phenomenon has been widely discussed in the New York Times Education section. If you reduce your standards for grades and scores, you drop in the rankings, although you have accomplished a noble social objective. Smith has one of the highest diversity rates in the country.
I can tell you that the days of white, wealthy, upper-class students from prep schools in cashmere coats and pearls who marry Amherst men are over. This is unfortunate because it is this demographic that puts their name on buildings, donates great art and subsidizes scholarships.
-Anne Spurzem '84
(original link: http://www.smithsophian.com/opinions/letters-to-the-editor-1.2792404#.T0rSluA3IxY)
Needless to say, this letter has created quite the stir in the Smith (and greater Seven Sisters) community. I wanted to share it as proof (not that we need it) that ignorance is still a prevalent issue today and perhaps to spark conversation surrounding academia and issues of class, race, and sexuality.
- Jessie (aka Jessica, in case that was confusing for anybody)
Wow Jessie, That was a great connection and interesting letter. I was wondering what the stance was going to be, where the author was going with it, and then at that last sentence I was astonished. How "unfortunate." I am, in return, trying not the judge the author of this letter negatively...seeing (as we have read this book) that there are so many sides to a story but its pretty simply put, in writing a letter like this, that doesn't look very favorably on her.
ReplyDelete