African-American Experience at the T14 Forum

[A-Modest-Proposal]

Hello, this is my first post on TLS (after observing for a while) and I am excited to be apart of this forum!

Anyways, I am a rising junior, African-American male currently sitting on a 3.78 GPA (with ambitions to get into 3.9 before application time). But those are details you probably do not care for

So I have ambitions for the T14, most preferably UChicago atm, and I am curious to here of everyone's anecdotal experiences with being an URM in these law schools. Things like academic struggles/success, social engagement and of course, any experience with racism interest me. Since I have a year until I take the LSAT and apply for schools, I am in of course no rush. However, it's never to early to start researching more in-depth right?

Btw, if I am posting this in the wrong sub-section, I apologize, first post so please don't flame me too hard.

[twenty]

With that GPA (even if you don't get 3.9) I wouldn't be at all surprised to see you at Harvard or Stanford. UChicago should be a walk in the park.

As far as racism in graduate education goes -- the older and more mature you get, your peers get, and your station in life gets, the less racism you'll see. My cousin is living in west Long Beach and runs with a rough crowd. Go figure, he experiences racism, police-naughties, etc all the time. I show up to work every day in a suit and tie and plod off to grad school at night in a polo shirt and jeans. For some completely-unknown reason, I don't experience a quarter of the racism my cousin does.

The stuff I've heard from UChicago is that the campus itself is totally fine, but the surrounding area isn't always very friendly to all parties. I'm sure it doesn't even come close to comparing to USC, but if you experience any racism, it will almost certainly be from outside the campus, not inside.

[A-Modest-Proposal]

That's very good to here that overt forms of racism dissipate (but I'm sure never go away), but your poor cousin, I hope he can stay strong through all of that.

One thing I am definitely interested in hearing about is how your peers treat you. Of course, I'm sure most people will not experience 1960s Mississippi type of discrimination, but I do know that on the undergraduate level, many minorities are seen as only attending because of Affirmative Action. It goes without saying, that this view will distort people's perception of you - making them believe you are less intelligent as they are, and by extension inferior and undeserving of attending that school.

Have you had any experiences with this?