Capp's blacks
Sir, As a school counsellor involved in recommending minority group students (admittedly Mexican-American, not Black) for university admission here in the United States, I feel that my countryman, Al Capp, seems to miss some vital points in his ' Blacks in the Ivy League.' Admissions committees at American universities are beginning to realise that there are factors other than school marks and test scores in determining ability to do university work. Ethnic background is certainly not the sole factor id admitting a student, but it is now recognised that a boy or girl who lives in a three-room flat in the slums with five other people who have never finished elementary school, and who must work in order to help keep his relatives from starving. may have the same ability, but not the school achievement similar to that of his middle-class counterpart. Such students being taken out of a culturally disadvantaged environment and being placed in an intellectually stimulating one, such as Harvard, has, in itself, been a major factor in their utilising latent intellectual ability. I question the statement that such students are " psychologically and academically unprepared to survive in as demanding an atmosphere as our Ivy League universities," but I will concede that they have little chance for academic survival in the ghetto or the barrio.
Being a WASP myself, I am in a position to discuss neither the " Black Experience," the " Chicano Experience," nor, I must admit to Mr Capp, the "Jewish Experience." There is, however, one culturally disadvantaged white American I would recommend for university admission whom Mr Capp would no doubt reject. His name is Abner Yokum of Dogpatch, Kentucky.
Michael E. Sullivan Watsonville High School, 250 Third Street, Watsonville, California
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