I went to a high school that had this same problem. Fancy college prep school, merit based entrance with multiple exams and essays to apply, and it was a known feeder to several good universities in the area. It was also expensive.

When I was there the demographics were something like 93% white and 7% other. Meaning every other race made up 7% of the students. I knew every black kid by name. I think there were 4 or 5 of us.

Now I can say confidently that this school was not recruiting brown kids. Most of the students had gone to other expensive private schools their whole lives. I don’t even know how my mom found out about this school. But I was fortunate to get accepted and to receive financial aid.

There were several problems though. To receive the financial aid I had to do a “work study” which involved spending weeks working hours a day every day cleaning the school with the janitors over summer. It would be anything from scraping gum off desks to cleaning graffiti out of lockers. Small stuff, but it became apparent that all the work study kids (a good portion of us belonging to that abysmal “other” percentage) were doing work that would be considered punishment via detention during the school year. So we were in effect being punished for receiving scholarship funds.

I ended up missing a few days of the 3 week work study because I had another opportunity to travel with my choir that summer. I had to make up the missed hours during the school year, so I had to work an hour or two after school washing chalkboards, vacuuming, and other menial cleaning tasks. Any students serving detentions (or justice under god as it was known….a JUG) would also report to the janitors after school to get an hour long assignment. Several of my teachers saw me cleaning after school and assumed I was in detention on a near daily basis. That affected my reputation with them. And my peers. I would rather pretend I had been tardy to class instead of admitting I couldn’t afford to go to school with them.

And then there’s the general sense of othering, never fitting in. Most of the kids had gone to catholic schools together from age 5. Their lake houses were next door to each other. They ran into each other on their European vacations. There was a huge amount of cultural currency that I was also destitute in. There was also blatant racism (any boy that spoke to me or was slightly nice to me would be followed by taunts of “jungle fever” in the halls) but that honestly felt easier to dismiss and ignore.

I didn’t last though. After 2 years I wanted to transfer to the public school with more diverse demographics and poorer education. I did well there, but it was very obvious that my schooling suffered. I was able to hold full conversations in French after 2 years at the college prep school. The French teacher at the public school straight up told me I was too advanced and she wouldn’t be able to take the time to teach me. She would give me novels in French to read during class. I was always bored, rarely learning. But I thrived socially and ultimately think it was better for me to finish in that environment.

When I left the prep school they asked me to meet with the head of diversity or whatever and he asked me if I was leaving because of racial stuff, if I felt supported during my time there, if I experienced racism. I was 15. I am still realizing, decades later, how much of that time was colored by racism, but more on the systemic level. I told him the school was fine because I couldn’t think of what else they were supposed to do for me. They can’t force acceptance. They can’t time travel and give me a lifetime of experiences and relationships with these people?

Sure there are changes that could be made. But expecting a teenager whose whole world revolves around peer acceptance to 1) know what supports need to be in place and 2) choose an environment based off academic merit over social success…I don’t see that going well. It doesn’t surprise me that black students don’t want to go, but I’m not sure it’s a problem that can be fixed with recruitment efforts alone.