Morehouse College? Thoughts and Perceptions (Jackson: credit, loans, dorm)
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my thoughts as somebody who has never even been near that campus: it is a niche private school where people that cant get into better schools go, while thinking they are aaawesome!
you asked about perceptions. this is mine.
Then your perceptions are not grounded in reality.How does one make statements without a shread of data to support such perceptions?I can tell you from first hand experience that I have had friends that got accepted at schools like Notre Dame,UGA,Standford,Duke,UNC etc...My best friend who is British,has 2 nephews that went to Morehouse.Before they graduated the had offers from companies.Jimi (the youngest )works in NYC for Deutch Bank.His brother transferred from Sanford and finished at Morehouse and completed grad school at The London School of Economics.He now works for IBM in London.
If you knew ANY graduates from Morehouse you would know what im saying is true.
So yes I think your thoughts are not "perceptions" as you call it,but more like racist drivel supported by pure ignorance.
But hey....its only my "perception" of you.
So basically, you are letting your personal beef with Morehouse fuel your vendetta on this thread. Excellent. What did they ever do to you? Short you on a pay check? Fire you? SMH
No personal vendetta with Morehouse. I was not a direct employee of the university but worked with an organization that worked extensively with the students at the AUC. I added my thoughts to this thread because I think that a balanced perspective is required and all of the overly "Rah-Rah Yay Morehouse" statements create a very poor reflection of the school's actual academics.
Then your perceptions are not grounded in reality.How does one make statements without a shread of data to support such perceptions?I can tell you from first hand experience that I have had friends that got accepted at schools like Notre Dame,UGA,Standford,Duke,UNC etc...My best friend who is British,has 2 nephews that went to Morehouse.Before they graduated the had offers from companies.Jimi (the youngest )works in NYC for Deutch Bank.His brother transferred from Sanford and finished at Morehouse and completed grad school at The London School of Economics.He now works for IBM in London.
If you knew ANY graduates from Morehouse you would know what im saying is true.
So yes I think your thoughts are not "perceptions" as you call it,but more like racist drivel supported by pure ignorance.
But hey....its only my "perception" of you.
How many Morehouse dropouts do you know? If it's not nearly a 50:50 split, then you're not describing a complete picture. 45% of students there don't finish...how many of them get great jobs/grad school? That's actual evidence vs. your stories of your buddies. At least these are metrics that are grounded in reality published by Morehouse versus anecdotal evidence of every grad hitting a homerun w/ their career. If you only describe the successes, then things get skewed very easily. I'm all for looking at the successes but to ignore hard numbers completely is a dangerous oversight.
Example of such an anecdote: The best way to become a billionaire is to drop out of Harvard. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg did it and they're ridiculously successful. Does this mean that on the avg, Harvard dropouts make more than Harvard grads and the absolute best course of action is drop out? Even though their combined worth is north of 60B, on the average I'd venture dropouts make less.
This isn't to say Morehouse doesn't have advantages but to me the idea that entering an environment unlike that of the real world you're going to have to work in isn't going to help. I'm a minority myself but creating an insular environment wasn't particularly helpful for my undergrad career b/c that isn't how the real world is. There's diversity in thought, culture, and experience and I strongly believe getting exposed to that has more value than ensconcing myself w/ people of the same skin color/background (and I did that for virtually all of my undergrad to my own detriment).
How many Morehouse dropouts do you know? If it's not nearly a 50:50 split, then you're not describing a complete picture. 45% of students there don't finish...
Are you sure that's correct? I'm not really challenging you, but that just seems hard to believe! I don't operate at that high a level but I've always understood that Morehouse was an extremely elite institution and essentially equivalent to Harvard.
I hate to say this but Morehouse and pretty much every other HBCU around (Howard, CAU, Spelman, FAMU) are a bunch of jokes and wastes of money. Seriously, for the money you pay you can get a much, much, much better education somewhere else. Morehouse lets in damn near everybody, their facilities are HORRIBLE, point blank period, there is no way around the fact that you're paying 35K + a year for sub-par dorms, labs, rec centers, etc.......Morehouse is literally falling apart!!!! Spelman doesn't have central air in like half their dorms.....in 2011!!!!!!!!!!! Where is the money going???????? And for anyone worried about the crime in areas around the AUC should worry just as much about the students inside the AUC. It pains me as an AA male to say this but HBCU's are a joke and a complete waste of money...........
And to the person who wrote this thread, your question seems like a no brainer...Georgetown vs. Morehouse???? Those two choices are not even close, who cares about a meth lab that was found on campus at Georgetown ..for every instance like that at a school like Georgetown I can point out three stories of much worse things happening at Morehouse....just off the top of my head within the last 10 years
1. The incident where a Morehouse student was getting an insurance check and some of his fellow Morehouse men set him up and beat him within an inch of his life and left him to die in the trunk of his own car so that they could steal the aforementioned check. Im sure someone else remembers this, it happened in Riverdale a few years ago, and while it didnt happen on campus, all of those involved were Morehouse students.
2. The incident two years ago where a Spelman student was killed in a shootout on campus.
3. The incident where a Morehouse student was killed in his car on J E Boone Blvd while waiting on someone for a drug deal.
4. The incident where a Morehouse student was murdered and robbed of 3 pounds of high grade marijuana that he was selling also while in school, that happened on campus in one of the older houses over there that rents to college students....and for those that will say I'm making stuff up (more than likely HBCU grads) I say to them that I attended Morehouse, I saw this stuff first hand as all of this was not rumor, but incidents that actually happened while I WAS THERE, and the young man who was killed was actually a good friend of mine, Jameson Bush was his name, he was from a good family in East Cobb but wanted to be a thug, and some real thugs showed him what the game was about. When I have kids there is no way in hell they are going to an HBCU, and dont even get me started on how the premium money you pay, but yet the sub standard facilities just screams someone at the top is stealing money. After I left Morehouse I went to GA Perimeter College for all of $2,500 a semester and everything there even down to the bathrooms made Morehouse look like a complete joke, and GPC is a two year school might I add.......
And did I mention that Spelman, at this very moment in 2011, still has dorms that don't have central heating and air??????????????
I think you see the results in this thread when you ask these people. They get defensive and make non-nonsensical statements like "There are just as many successful people from Morehouse as from Georgetown."
I think more value can be added by talking to people who have had experiences at both or college/career counselors. You don't get the biased input of the "I love my alma mater" crowd who would defend their school regardless of the discussion topic. I've worked with Morehouse and another university in Atlanta and can tell you that the educational experiences and educational resources aren't even close to equal. If you place more value on "getting the black perspective" than getting the best education, perhaps Morehouse would jump up the list. Otherwise, it is just an average small liberal arts school.
Well, I'm someone who's had experiences at both. I attended Harvard College and spent a semester at Morehouse. In hindsight, I really do wish I had just gone to Morehouse.
Generally speaking, there are two types of black people who attend predominantly white colleges (and Ivies in particular). There are the "There's no such thing as race we're all just people let's all hold hands" type. And then there are the the "I don't f*** with white folks I'm going to live in Ujamaa House" types. Most black kids fall into that second category.
It's nice to think that your son will benefit from all the diversity a large "white" school has to offer. But the reality is that college campuses are just as segregated as anywhere else. There are only so many affirmative action bake-offs a person can tolerate. I think a lot of us attend these schools for the "diversity," but end up feeling extremely isolated and marginalized once we get there.
I was a part of the Honors Program at Morehouse and thought my classes were challenging. Ask anyone who's ever taken Organic at Morehouse and they will tell you it's not a cakewalk. I actually worked harder in that class than in any class at Harvard. Plus, there's the added comfort of race falling into the background, so you're free to focus on learning without having to defend your presence on campus every other day.
Ultimately, it's about what your son's trying to achieve and what environment he's comfortable in. If he's trying to be an oceanographer, then I'd say Morehouse probably isn't the school for him. If, on the other hand, he wants to major in Poli Sci, then I don't see the point in paying an extra $30K for your son to go to Georgetown when he'll learn the same crap at Morehouse, and then get into the same law/grad school. He'll also make better connections at Morehouse. The Winklevosses, Drew Fausts and Larry Summers of the world aren't trying to look out for your son.
If your son chooses to go to a predominantly white school, I would recommend Stanford. The black graduate students there have a good relationship with the undergrads and they provide an academic support network for the black undergrads (they provide papers, review papers, go over readings, etc.).
Last edited by BajanYankee; 10-07-2011 at 12:52 PM..
If your son's quest for a black experience is paramount in life, then you don't have to leave Houston for that. Have him stay in Houston and save a lot of money. Also, if having the black experience is paramount for attending college, then your son is going for the wrong reason. I think you as a parent need to do some growing up and realize that getting a college education is the real issue regardless of how many blacks attend the college. Hmmmmmmmmm!!!!!! Kind of feel sorry for this young man with the lack of guidance he's getting from mom and dad.
Then your perceptions are not grounded in reality.How does one make statements without a shread of data to support such perceptions?I can tell you from first hand experience that I have had friends that got accepted at schools like Notre Dame,UGA,Standford,Duke,UNC etc...My best friend who is British,has 2 nephews that went to Morehouse.Before they graduated the had offers from companies.Jimi (the youngest )works in NYC for Deutch Bank.His brother transferred from Sanford and finished at Morehouse and completed grad school at The London School of Economics.He now works for IBM in London.
If you knew ANY graduates from Morehouse you would know what im saying is true.
So yes I think your thoughts are not "perceptions" as you call it,but more like racist drivel supported by pure ignorance.
But hey....its only my "perception" of you.
No way homie, all due respect to you as I lurk on here often and I tend to agree with your posts, but in this case you're way off base IMO. Don't make it seem like graduating from Morehouse is an automatic "golden ticket" to success in life. I know plenty of Morehouse grads that have BS jobs, from my experience those students who went to Morehouse and attained the levels of success of which you speak come from very well to do families from across the country and those families have deep connections. So it really wouldn't matter where they went to school, as they would have probably ended up on their feet regardless, as most children of rich parents do, white or black. For kids like me, who come from modest middle class backgrounds, and whose parents were not able to get them into organizations such as Jack and Jill and Tots and Teens as a child, that is sadly not the case homie, If you're coming from a background such as mine you are much better off going to a school like Georgetown so you can make connections that your parents didn't have a chance to, as the "clickish" nature of Morehouse will hinder you from doing so.
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