Professor Pens College Guide for African American Students

A Johns Hopkins University professor hopes his Guide to Colleges for African American Students will help college-bound African American students pick the right school for them. The guide reviews more than 400 colleges. Those reviews focus on general information and factors African American students should consider when choosing a college. Included: Comments from college officials about the guide's value.

After meeting a student while lecturing at another college, Johns Hopkins University professor Thomas A. LaVeist began wondering how to better match African American students with colleges. The student, like LaVeist an African American, said he hoped to earn a doctorate in public health. But although he was very bright, according to LaVeist, his grade-point average was low. The young man was the first in his family to attend college and had struggled the first two years.

Part of the reason for that struggle was that the student had not been prepared for college culturally and needed some support, LaVeist said. Had the young man done more research before selecting a college, perhaps he might have chosen a school more compatible and supportive of his particular background, LaVeist added. Now because of a low GPA in his first two years of college, it may be more difficult for him to gain acceptance to a graduate program.

LaVeist, an associate professor of sociology, health, and public policy, said even some of the African American students he met on his own campus said they had selected Johns Hopkins because of its reputation, not necessarily because the school met their needs. LaVeist decided to write a guide specifically for African American students to help them select the best colleges for them out of the more than 3,000 U.S. colleges.

GUIDE ON THE MARKET

Last year, LaVeist published the DayStar Guide to Colleges for African American Students. The guide includes a list of 100 schools rated as the best for African Americans, advice on getting accepted to a student's top choices, and reviews of more than 400 colleges rated on factors important to African American students.

"I think part of the reason [such a guide] hadn't been [written] before is that people in admissions knew how long it would take," joked LaVeist. Compiling the guide took about two solid years of work, he said. Besides his position at Johns Hopkins, LaVeist also is the founder and president of DayStar Educational Research, a firm specializing in research that pertains to African Americans.

One of the differences between the DayStar guide and others for African American students is that other guides deal with only schools known as historically black colleges, or HBCs, LaVeist said. But only about 35 percent of African American students attend HBCs, he said.

In compiling information for the guide, LaVeist said, he sent out questionnaires to about 1,000 college professors and administrators, asking them to rate colleges in terms of their academic and social climate.

For example, the DayStar guide does not list just the percentage of African American students enrolled on a campus, but the percentage who graduate in four years as well as in six years. High school students also can look up the number of undergraduate African American faculty members at a college and notable African American alumni.

Other information included in the ratings is whether schools have an African American studies department, whether they have social groups for African American students, and even whether services for African Americans, such as hair salons, are in schools' area.

ADMINISTRATORS RESPOND

Ronald Nief, the public affairs director at Beloit College in Wisconsin, talked with LaVeist while he was preparing the guide. Nief said the finished product is one of the better guides he has seen. "He didn't go with just the numbers, but the attitude and sense of community," Nief said. "It's important to reach the first generation of students to go to college."

Stacy Blake-Beard, an assistant professor of administration, planning, and social policy at Harvard University's School of Education, also praised the DayStar guide. "This is really important work," said Blake-Beard, an African American who filled out a survey for the guide and sent in comments. "The college application process is fraught enough with anxiety. I think of how much I would have appreciated a guide like this."

03/14/2001