College Selection Guide: Campus Safety and Protests

Level 5 - Ivy League

Welcome back! 

In this series, we have been covering a list of considerations every student should evaluate as they select colleges to apply to. 

In a conversation with a parent, another topic born out of recent events came to mind that we should discuss. 

One of the bigger topics to come up on college campuses are the beliefs and safety a student will have.

Recent events have highlighted a worst-case scenario that many parents do not consider - what happens if world events negatively impact your child’s college experience. 

Jewish students (and professors) have found themselves not being allowed on campuses and being told to “go back to where you came from.” Overt antisemitism is a reality for students - and in these circumstances, you often find yourself at a loss of what to do. 

Many parents are evaluating their options - whether to transfer their students to another school or consider taking time off from college. 

There are no right answers, but what we can do is provide a framework to assess your options, depending upon where you are as a student. 

We begin by reiterating what we said before - there are no right answers. The only right answer is the answer that works best for you. 

But there is also an equally important truth - there is no avoidance of these situations either. 

You can do some due diligence (and we will discuss that in this article), but you cannot assume that any particular school is immune to challenges.

When a parent sits in front of us, we have a conversation with them to understand that their child will face challenges that they cannot protect them from. Those challenges vary significantly:

• Drugs

• Alcohol

• Sex

• Discrimination

• Academic Challenges

These are just a few of the challenges that a child will face on a foreign campus. There is no avoiding it - it is inevitable. 

Even if you could pick a college with none of these challenges, you will have overengineered an environment where you remove socially acceptable times to face these challenges, where the consequences are less than they would be in “the real world.”

All that you can do is do your best to obvious challenges - you can do nothing to remove them.

The current college climate, where “free speech” is creating division among the student body, highlights this.

No parent sent their child to Columbia University expecting what is currently occurring on campus. 

So what can you do?

Considerations

In these situations, you have to understand that you are no powerless. Our suspicion is that these types of protests will spark policy conversation within universities - we have not heard anything to confirm it, but colleges and universities are facing a lot of challenges in light of news this year.

There will be pressure to address this and issue a policy for how to handle protests related to world events in a way that does not restrict free speech while also keeping students and faculty safe. 

This is not pure altruism. Parents will demand this safety as well. And when enough parents have an outcry, colleges will have to meet the demand. 

But beyond waiting for a policy, here are some concrete things that you can do today:

Understand Academic Impact

Ask the administration what academic options you have in the event of a challenging environment. Are there options for you to take classes online or remotely during moments of crisis? Can you simply leave campus and go home with no consequence?

Most colleges will have some alternative learning environments that are available, and given extenuating circumstances, you can probably receive a high degree of flexibility. 

If that is not possible, see if there are opportunities to withdraw from the semester and begin again. 

Practice Patience

We are not advocating for you to bury your head in the sand and just hope for the best. But sometimes, particularly now, you have to be able to give a situation a chance to blow over. 

Although not the same, there have been instances where a student is a victim of racism or sexism. Sometimes, it is a handful of students perpetuating the problem, and the solution is to handle it accordingly.

But sometimes, the level of vitriol exceeds normal standards. But you do not want to jump to conclusions and immediately panic because someone is doing something inappropriate. A single student’s failure is different than an institutional failure. 

Understand What On-Campus Resources and Options Are Available

Check to see if there are any on-campus groups or resources designed to assist in these circumstances. 

We are not ones to discuss “safe places,” but there are affinity groups on campus that may be able to provide support through difficult times. They may be aware of resources and networks to support you in these times of crisis. 

Evaluate Your Transfer Options

Although we do not recommend it immediately, you should also be prepared to transfer to another school. If a college demonstrates an unwillingness or inability to address the challenges that you are facing, you cannot wait indefinitely for a response. In the time it takes to transfer, a college should be able to address these challenges.

If they cannot move in that direction, then you have to go. You cannot risk your academic career on the whims of others' inability to do anything.