First, I recommend looking at several sites:
2 Trance.com - Check out this site! It has lots of helpful info for gay youth, especially college info - They also have a database of schoolarships available to gay and lesbian students.
Christopher-David - an organization founded in San Francisco in 1997 as "America's only nonprofit, no-fee college counseling organization for gay youth". Also recommended is a list of "Campus links" on Rainbow Resources. This offers links to campus resources of various colleges. Click Here to go there.
Heartstrong - an organization geared toward assisting GLBT's in conservative schools and colleges. If you are struggling with religious fundamentalism in school and homosexuality, this is a great site run by a couple that has been there.
Share your opinions! Post your comments, and say what you think about schools and colleges, and their value to gay and lesbian students.
Note: this guestbook is only for college info. If you wish to sign my personal ads, Click here, or if you wish to sign my guestbook, Click here. Any information that does not pertain to the topic will be deleted.
The first entry is an something that I wrote in a newsgroup in May (2000), and have reposted here (in the book as well as below)
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This is an excellent article about addressing gay issues in college essays:
Chicago Tribune, July 15, 2001
435 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL, 60611
(Fax: 312-222-2598 ) (E-Mail: ctc-tribletter@tribune.com )
( http://www.chicagotribune.com )
http://www.chicagotribune.com/article/0,1051,SAV-0107140283,00.html
A level of comfort
By J. Linn Allen, Tribune higher education reporter
College application essays can often be very personal, but Illinois Wesleyan admissions counselor Jerry Pope was particularly struck by one he received a couple of years ago from a student who wrote about how he dealt with a life change: when his father came out of the closet.
"He found out his sophomore year in high school that his father was gay. His parents divorced and his grades dropped, but then he got comfortable with the idea and lived with his father and his partner," said Pope, assistant dean of admissions at the school in Bloomington. "Just the way he addressed it wowed the admissions committee," Pope added, noting that the applicant was admitted.
College admissions staffers are seeing a gradual increase in students who bring up issues relating to homosexuality at some point during the application process, something they say was unheard of just a few years ago.
Many gay and lesbian students, often coming from high schools in which they felt excluded from the mainstream, still may have second thoughts about signaling their sexual preference directly or indirectly to the school of their choice. But experts in the field say that in most cases, they shouldn't worry.
What the colleges look for
"College admissions officers care less about student sexual orientation and more about how a student approaches significant issues in his or her life," said Deb Donley, a post-high school counselor at New Trier High School in Winnetka. "It's more about how you rise to the occasion and what battles you choose." And the more selective schools are the most sophisticated, added Donley. "They're comfortable with most folks no matter what their orientation."
Most schools have anti-discrimination policies, and admissions officers aren't going to ask about sexual orientation, said Ted O'Neill, dean of admissions at the University of Chicago.
But if the issue does arise, they are likely to be comfortable about it, he said.
"That's the way it is as a profession," O'Neill said. "We are here because we are tolerant and accepting, in part because it's a position that's all about making opportunities for people. That's the way most of us see it."
That kind of outlook, plus a growing openness about
homosexuality in popular culture, particularly on TV, seems to be encouraging applicants to discuss the topic more freely. Pope, who is gay, said he's hearing questions about whether Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington has a non-discrimination policy on sexual orientation during recruiting programs and in campus interviews. "A couple of years ago, you never got questions like that," he said.
Parents get involved
In some cases, parents are getting involved. Darnell Heywood, associate director of admissions at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, said that after she had interviewed one high school junior, the boy's father brought up the issue, though the boy had not.
"He asked straight out, 'My son is gay. Can you tell us about gay life on campus and would he be comfortable?' That's the first time that's ever happened," Heywood said.
With another student who had already been admitted, Heywood brought the issue up with the parents after discussing it with the applicant and giving him contacts involved with gay life on campus.
"I said, 'I know he's gay. I think it's something he's concerned about, and I want him to leave with a full picture of Kenyon.' The mother just started crying because she was so relieved and happy I had said something," Heywood said.
Heywood added that the typical way she gets an indication of an applicant's sexual orientation is when a high school activities list includes a gay-straight alliance or similar group. "That's probably somewhat of a change, both that the groups exist and that the applicants list them in their activities," she said.
Stephanie Morris, who will be a junior in the fall at the University of Chicago, said she included being a leader in her high school's gay-straight alliance as one of her activities. "There are obviously many straight people involved, so it's an indication but not a direct statement," she said.
Morris, a physics major, said she was momentarily hesitant about mentioning her gay group affiliations on her application to one prestigious science-heavy school in the Northeast but dismissed her doubt. If that made a negative difference, "I think I wouldn't want to go to school there," she said.
In certain circumstances, speaking about struggles with sexual orientation can help an application, particularly when it helps to clear up a spotty academic record, said Rob Sheinkopf, head of admissions at the University of Illinois at Chicago, whose application form offers students a chance to make a personal statement.
"It's helpful to us as admissions officers when it explains one bad year," Sheinkopf said. "Sexual orientation is none of our business, but when it's brought to our attention as a factor, it could explain some kind of negative experience."
Jerry Prochazka, a University of Chicago graduate student who is gay, echoed that advice.
"For a lot of young gay and lesbian people, sometimes the coming-out process affects living at home and with the family, and maybe a drop in grades. For a more egalitarian college and university, they should say why the drop occurred," he said.
But he added that conservative or very religious schools might not be so sympathetic to such an explanation, and might not be a place that gay students would want to attend in any case. At such schools, "the challenge of being out is more complicated," he noted.
Lists of comfortable places
There are numerous organizations and guides that can help gay students find a college where they would fit in. The Princeton Review's annual guidebook, for instance, lists top gay-friendly and gay-averse colleges.
In addition, scholarships targeted to gays and students active in gay causes have begun to appear. For instance, Iowa has a few scholarships for gays at its state universities, and the founder of the Quark software company established an extensive college scholarship program for Colorado gay and lesbian students.
Though there are always exceptions, colleges and universities -- places where experimentation is generally encouraged -- are likely to be more tolerant than most other groupings in society. "In the grand scheme of things, academia as a whole is a safe place to be out," Prochazka said.
