Human Diversity and Academic Excellence: Learning from Experience

Abstract

Since 1963, A Better Chance has helped send youth of color who would otherwise not have opportunities to do so to independent, mostly boarding, schools. One third of program participants are from families that receive public assistance or live at or below the poverty line. However, each year about 99% of A Better Chance graduating seniors immediately enter college, with 88% enrolling in colleges classified as competitive, highly competitive, or very competitive. This article describes the application, assessment, and acceptance processes these students undergo in pursuit of their educational goals, along with anecdotal vignettes describing successful A Better Chance Scholars. As the oldest and only national academic talent search agency for students of color in the country, A Better Chance has been working some 36 years in pursuit of its mission: to significantly increase the number of well-educated people of color who can assume positions of leadership in U.S. society. It is safe to say that, directly or indirectly, A Better Chance's work has been the catalyst for integrating most of the selective, predominantly White independent preparatory schools in this country. Its years of experience with students, families, schools and colleges, recruiters, researchers, donors, alumni, volunteers, corporations, foundations, and friends have established a powerful body of learning and expertise. Although A Better Chance staff do not pretend to have all the answers, or even know all the questions related to successful independent schooling for African American and other students of color, the program's unique efforts have uncovered a significant number of both. Clearly, the independent school community-which includes students, families, teachers, and admissions personnel-needs to understand what can and must be done to promote academic success for all children. Examining practices shown to be successful in encouraging academic success, especially among nontraditional student populations at these institutions, can provide useful information. Such information can help answer two particularly vital questions, both of which will be addressed in this article: (1) What are some of the factors that promote African American students' academic and social success at participating A Better Chance schools? (2) With regard to diversity and academic excellence, what lessons can be learned from the A Better Chance experience? A BETTER CHANCE: HISTORY AND LEGACY A Better Chance was founded at Dartmouth College in 1963. Dartmouth, along with several other colleges, wanted to recruit greater numbers of African American students. The colleges developed a program called Project ABC: A Better Chance, through which high-potential African American high school boys could be identified and given the opportunity to participate in a summer of intensive academic work designed to prepare them for college and raise the probability that they would matriculate. A separate but similar program, the Independent Schools Talent Search (ISTS), was being developed at the same time by the headmasters of some of the country's elite male boarding schools. The objective of this latter program was also to increase minority enrollment at these institutions, which in 1963 meant primarily African American enrollments. ISTS and Project ABC eventually merged, and a new plan was developed through which 48 ninthand lOth-grade boys were recruited to complete their secondary education at one of the 25 founding independent schools.l These students' matriculation at the founding institutions was contingent upon their successful completion of the Project ABC summer program at Dartmouth. With funding from federal government antipoverty programs and two primary private sources, the merger of these two efforts was eventually completed, and A Better Chance was born. In the years immediately following the first wave of A Better Chance Scholars, several changes were made to the fledgling program. …