Best schools for Hispanics

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Video Transcript

Female Speaker: Community, state, private, four year, two year, ivy league, vocational, confused? You are not alone. These are just a few of the thousands of options out there for Latinos when picking out a college. So what do parents and students need to know.

Male speaker: All of the institutions that are succeeding in getting the students, Latino students to go out to their campuses and succeed in getting a college education tend to do basically three main things. One is, they provide an environment that is welcoming. Secondly, these institutions tend to have a wealth of resources available for the students. Usually they have leadership from the top, they are very top of the institution, the President or CEO of the institution and executives of that institution being very open and upfront about their support for looking success.

Female Speaker: According to Hispanic business magazine Stanford University, the University of California, Irvine, and the University of New Mexico are three of the top ranked schools for Latinos. What makes these schools stand above the crowd?

Female Speaker: What we have tried to do is present a folk program of support.

Female Speaker: So the minute that their steps were on campus they will feel the vibrancy, they will feel how we value diversity here.

Female Speaker: Sometimes the secret of their success also depends upon the location, location, location.

Male speaker: Our legislators are mainly Hispanic and our Governor, Governor Bill Richardson is Hispanic. We are the only state that's officially a bilingual state.

Female Speaker: How do you find the best schools for Latinos? Here are some helpful tips. Search the Internet. A great starting point is to visit the Congressional Hispanic Caucus institute website at chci.org. Don't have access to the Internet, visit your local library. And most importantly, sit down with your college counselor at your high school as early as possible. They are great source information and guidance. But finding the right school with an environment that appeals to Latinos is only part of the equation.

Female Speaker: One of the misconceptions that a lot of the students have is that they may or may not be able to compete. I mean, they are coming from large cities, small communities and the attempt of the campuses is to make them feel welcome.

Female Speaker: The generational and cultural gap of Latino families may also play a big role with parents unwilling to let their child move away from home for college.

Male Speaker: Here in Southern California we have five or six campuses both UCI or UCs and Cal State, close enough to where you live to allow your son or daughter to go and still be close enough to come home occasionally.

Female Speaker: Being on your own for the first time, feeling out of place and wondering whether you can handle the academic workload are just some of the natural emotions students feel when they go to college.

Male Speaker: It's a matter of providing a lot of support to the students. Being able to talk to someone, being able to know who their faculty are, asking for help. Many universities have not. Most universities have support programs, they have tutoring programs, they have mentoring programs, they all have programs to help students succeed.

Female Speaker: By offering support programs, organizations gear towards Latino students. Universities help to smooth over that difficult transition to college life by making campuses feel more like home.

Female Speaker: The Umbrella Organization to the Chicano/Latino Community here on campus is El Centro central Chicano. Now we have Mariachi Cardenal de Stanford, we have Ballet Folklorico and we also have Casa Zapata. So students have the opportunity to live in a environment where the Chicano/Latino culture is prominent throughout.