For minority students, finding a perfect fit

Tomorrow marks the early-decision deadline for high-school seniors applying to Penn, and for some applicants, the decision may come down to which campus felt 'right.'

And when it comes to the people prospective students meet - like their Kite and Key tour guides - race and ethnicity may or may not be a deciding factor in what makes them feel like they belong at a certain school.

For Anush Vinod, a senior at George Walton High School in Marietta, Ga., the demographics of the people he sees on a college campus would not influence his decision to apply.

Vinod, who is Indian, has visited two Georgia colleges but said he did not feel uncomfortable on either campus, even though his tour guides at both schools were white.

Likewise, Julia Morris, a senior at Vero Beach High School in Vero Beach, Fla., said race did not at all affect her decision to apply early action to Stanford University.

Morris, who is Cuban, said the school's atmosphere factored into her decision, and she did not feel uncomfortable despite not seeing many Latino students on campus.

For others, though, it's important to see that they will fit in.

Naor Brown, an Israeli senior at University School of Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said his decision to attend a school would be negatively influenced "if there weren't many people like me."

"A lot of students are comfortable with seeing students who look like them," said Karlene Burrell-McRae, director of Maaku, the black student cultural center, "so I don't think it would hurt to have more tour guides of color."

Penn admissions seeks "students of all backgrounds" to represent Penn by giving tours, hosting prospective students and returning to their former high schools, David Toomer, director of Penn's undergraduate admissions multicultural recruitment program, wrote in an e-mail.

"Since no single tour guide can embody all of the communities represented at Penn, we look for tour guides who value diversity, know the campus well and . are welcoming to all of our visitors," he added.

Kite and Key President and Engineering senior Danny Lustig wrote in an e-mail that the organization's leadership wants the members to "reflect the overall diversity of the school, as Penn's diversity is one of its biggest assets."

In an effort to increase that diversity, Kite and Key will be instituting "Opportunity and Access Programs" this year, wrote Lustig. These programs will work with Penn's cultural resource centers and the admissions office to "improve the outreach and resources offered to prospective minority students."

In the past, Kite and Key has also worked with MeChA, the Mexican American students organization, to perform local high-school outreach.

Latino Coalition chairman and Wharton junior Rami Reyes wrote in an e-mail that he would also like to see Kite and Key offer tours in Spanish.

Some students have grown used to an environment in which they are the minority.

For example, Vinod's classmate Ailya Husain, who is Pakistani, said she "wouldn't feel uncomfortable" at a predominantly white school because she attended middle and high schools with those demographics. Yet she said that if she visited a school and saw no diversity at all, she would not apply.

But, she added, the race of her tour guide when she visits a school doesn't matter as long as she can observe that the school is diverse, like New York University, her first-choice school.

"In my mind, when students come to visit, they need to see the fullness and richness of a place like Penn," said Burrell-McRae. She added that students won't only be around people who are like them for four years, so they should be aware of the reality of the campus when they visit.

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