LGBTQ+ Panel

Webinar Transcription

2020-06-28 LGBTQ Plus College Panel

[00:00:00] Okay. Hi everyone. Welcome Bullseye’s first ever LGBTQ plus college panel. This is the first panel of our college app series, and we’re excited to kick off this new set of webinars, just to orient everyone with the format of the webinar and different chapters. We’ll start off with a presentation about navigating the college application process as an LGBTQ plus applicant.

And then we’ll answer your questions in a live Q and a on the sidebar. You can download our slides in the handouts tab and on the sidebar, you can start submitting questions in the Q and a tab. We’ll also answer questions you submitted when you registered for the event. Awesome. And to introduce ourselves, my name is

I am a bullseye adviser. And I recently graduated from Penn. My pronouns. Are he him? His hi everyone. [00:01:00] My name is Zoe. I graduated from Yale in 2016, my pronouns are she hers? Awesome. So we wanted to talk to you guys about some of the ways that you should be considering schools as an LGBTQ plus kids. And first think about the dedicated campus resources.

So a lot of universities and colleges will have an LGBT center on campus. And you want to be thinking like, is this, is there a dedicated, safe space with dedicated staff on campus? Where is it? Where’s the location? Is it close by to a lot of things? Is it near like some schools will have Campuses where you need buses to go in between places or some campuses are really centrally located.

So where exactly is the LGBT center? Is it near, your courses or your dorm? Additionally, you want to think about the staff that is there. So is it a lot of student run activities? Are there staff there that will serve as additional like [00:02:00] academic or personal advisors? Do some research on the LGBT center and they will usually be.

Starting off point for a lot of the things that you should be thinking about, or, a lot of opportunities on campus, they will be a great resource. Additionally, think about w what is their real role on campus? What are their events? How do they engage with you? Some ways are that people will have.

We’ll like just eat at the LGBT center or just hang out there and do their homework. Or sometimes they’ll have like movie nights. And so what’s what are students’ relationship with it as well? So is it something that they really only go to during pride events or special events or do students really see it as like a home away from home?

So some ways you can figure that out is just like seeing like student testimony or just reading a little bit more about, the specific resources that, and activities that they have at the LGBT centers. And additionally, the vast majority of schools will have [00:03:00] different career student clubs. So you can think of them in the two main categories.

Part of them would be Like identity organizations. So a lot, we’ll just have an overall LGBT union. Some we’ll have special ones for non-binary students, for trans students, queer people of color, et cetera. And some of them will also be more affinity based on some of your interests.

So some of them will be like, queer students and stem or queer students in business you can see different ways that you would want to get involved that way.

Okay. So now we’re going to move on to a poll. So after hearing our mom tell you about some queer student organizations to look for on campus I have this question it’s are you interested in joining queer student clubs on campus? You can let us know in the poll using your sidebar.[00:04:00]

Sure. That works. I’m going to try to initiate the poll now.

Feel free to vote. I think it, it shows up as a pop-up on your screen.

All, we’ll give you a minute seeing mostly yeses and maybe is I glad to hear that because these are a great way to build community on campus. We’ll close this out. And, they will be in they will be ways for you to just get some like general mentorship or just also make some friends, especially, when you first start college, it’s, pretty tough to make some friends and, you might share some things in common with those other states.

And additionally, one of the really important things to think about is that a lot of queer students will have special health needs. So you want to assess what are [00:05:00] the different resources that the university or college has for queer specific health. So some of them will be more like physical health resources, such as trans health some, especially different health coverages that the universities will provide.

So some schools will make you get the university health insurance or. Private insurance and then that might some universities are like really forward-thinking with trans health as well as just general sexual health. And as a lot of campus health centers will have special resources and counseling for that.

And just the, on the other side, there’ll be a lot of mental health resources that all universities have, but then you want to see are there Chris specific counselors that you can go to? For some counseling and just, speak with someone that has some specialty in understanding what queer students will be, are going through, what Christians at that school are going through and, be a little bit more familiar with things that you were experiencing.

So then you can really connect with them a little bit.[00:06:00]

And lastly, you want to be thinking of some academic opportunities as well. So that would be thinking about, purely coursework and departments. So is there a gender or sexuality studies department or are those types of courses more like sociology? You want to see what are the research areas of professors in that field?

Not as many schools will have as great of a focus on sexuality studies as much as they would just in general gender or or women’s studies more specifically, additionally, you can think of and in an academic context you can think of mentorship. So you might be able to find students outside of like gender and sexuality studies.

That you could speak with just about your major. So whether you’re a physics major or an English major, some schools will have special mentorship programs that are academic based with, a junior senior in the course of study that you applied for. Also some schools will have special mentorship programs with professors or [00:07:00] graduate students that you can really get to know them, understand them.

What does being in a research university like or, liberal arts called you can really understand how to navigate life from their perspective and then get some additional detailed insight from.

Okay. I will pick it up from here. So another thing you really want to consider is campus housing and accommodations. So campus housing traditionally was allocated along the gender binary, right? Co-ed housing, female dorms, male dorm. Now that there’s more of a queer consciousness in the world, particularly at American colleges, there’s more gender inclusive housing available.

So you’re going to want to research for each school. You’re considering is gender inclusive housing available nearly 300 schools in the U S currently [00:08:00] offer these resources. And generally that will look like, on yours. Survey of where you want to live, what roommates you want to have you say, I want to live with women.

I want to live with men, or I want to live with people of any gender. And then secondly, you’ll want to look at if students are required to live on campus. So if the campus housing is not quite as gender inclusive, as you want it to be, or you just want to live with your queer family, you’re going to want to see what requirements there are to live on campus.

So for example, from my experience, At Yale, you have to live on campus, both your freshmen and sophomore years, which has meant to build community. I was itching to move off campus because I wanted a kitchen and I wanted to live with my identified family. And I was allowed to do so my junior and senior years, and also like I was on financial aid and my aid for housing that would have been applied to on-campus housing.

Gave me [00:09:00] to use, to pay for rent. So you’re going to want to look at that her financial aid packages as well. Secondly campus bathrooms. We know gender inclusive bathrooms are important. So are they available both in academic buildings and in residential buildings. And then you’re also going to want to see if the school clearly designates where gender inclusive bathrooms are located.

For example, Yale has a really clear map of where all gender inclusive bathrooms are located. Most buildings have either. Single stall bathrooms or gender inclusive, multi stall bathrooms. Okay. Moving on to assessing college values and campus life this is a little bit more intangible, so you can do a little research about statistics, but then I really encourage you to talk to current students, recent alumni.

Get a litmus test, talk to people you’ve asked about this. So first you can do some basic [00:10:00] research about what percentage of the student body identifies as LGBTQ plus. This is important because lots of colleges, profused values of progressiveness and inclusivity. It doesn’t mean as much if there are no queer students on campus.

So just get a sense if you’ll have a kid have a community on a specific school campus and then once you’ve done that, Most colleges will give you an opportunity to talk to current students. Or if you end up working with bulls-eye, you’ll have access to our full network of advisors. And you can talk to advisors who are queer and attended a certain school, and they can tell you what queer life was like on that particular campus.

Yeah, like I said before, this is pretty intangible, but it’s a sense of when I walk around, will I feel supported? Will my campus. Queer groups get as much funding as non-queer groups. These are the things you might not think to ask, but someone who [00:11:00] attends that school could definitely tell you. And then secondly, it’s important to talk about Greek life because Greek life historically is very CIS normative heteronormative.

You’ve got frats and sororities. So the way Greek life is traditionally done. May not be the most queer friendly. So you will want to assess how predominant Greek life is on campus is all socializing, driven by Greek life. But also, there are exceptions to the rule. There are Greek scenes that are.

Gender inclusive that are queer inclusive. So do your research, like for example, I know UMass Amhurst has a fraternity that’s gender inclusive, and one of my most radically queer friends was a part of that frat and loved it. Yeah, we’ll stop there. Moving on to our next slide. Researching campus [00:12:00] locations.

So far we’ve talked about what resources are available on campus. But colleges are not islands unto themselves as much as we sometimes like to believe they are. You will be walking outside the boundaries of campus, even if only to go to and from campus each semester. So you’re going to want to look at the politics of the surrounding state of the surrounding town or city.

To assess how comfortable you’ll feel. So for example, Oberlin colleges in Ohio, it’s incredibly queer friendly, but Ohio historically is not the most queer friendly state. I think Oberlin’s a good example of that. Even though Ohio is not the most queer friendly, you’ll still probably have a really positive experience as a queer student on campus, even walking around outside of campus.

But you also want to make sure you’re not being driven by [00:13:00] stereotypes, right? So the U S south is not as queer friendly, but. There are really like, there are thriving queer communities even in the deep south. So don’t let those stereotypes prevent you from thinking like I can’t go to any school in Texas or Alabama.

There may be some options for you. And then secondly, you’re going to want to look at what LGBTQ plus resources and events are available beyond your school’s campus. So does the surrounding city have a community center for LGBTQ plus people are there queer resources, like a museum that hosts queer events and queer art galleries.

How supported is the queer community beyond your school? And then is there a pride parade and who participates in it? Who organizes it? You as a student, feel like you have access and are fully welcome to that pride parade.[00:14:00] These are all worthwhile things to look into. And so before Zoe tells us about college essays, I have another question.

And so you should get a pop-up for the poll right now. How important is campus pride to when you’re, when you are deciding where to apply? So you can rank it in the order of importance

or just say, how important it is to you. Okay. So far it seems like everybody’s in the very important to somewhat important. Area, but feel free to break outside of that norm.

Okay. So it seems pretty much everyone, doesn’t view it as the most important thing, but it’s also not, it is of importance to them. So back to Zoe.[00:15:00]

So now let’s talk about addressing queerness in college applications. So in your essays, you are no way obligated to address your sexual or gender identity yeah. Your personal experiences. You don’t have to share them to pander, to whatever you think your audience wants to hear. That’s your story. You have full control over.

That being said, if you want to discuss your queerness, because for your common app essay, you really feel that your coming out story or some silly story that somehow mentions your queerness is important to who you are and what you value then yes. Please discuss it. That will not harm you in any way. And indeed those essays can help you again, if it feels genuine and it comes from you because for a lot of us, our queerness shapes, how we walk through the world and how we experience it.[00:16:00]

And then a college essay you really are trying to communicate. This is who I am. These are my values, and this is what I can contribute to your college campus. If it feels right, you are welcome to mention it particularly in Y school essays. If you’re not familiar with those lots of colleges will have supplemental essays that basically ask you, why are you applying to Gmail?

Are you applying to Penn, so on and so forth? So in those essays, you generally want to provide very specific research. I actually know I want to attend this school. I have really good reasons. And you as an LGBTQ plus applicants can mention queer resources on campus. As a reason you want to attend that school.

So then for scholarships, it’s important to say that there are school specific merit scholarships and external scholarships that are specifically available for LGBTQ plus students. So just to explain what that means, a little school specific merit [00:17:00] scholarships, you typically get those simply by applying.

To that school, the colleges will read your essays, look at your extracurriculars. And if you’ve indicated that you’re an LGBTQ plus student and they have a particular merit scholarship for those identities, they might offer you that. External scholarships are third party scholarships. So you have to apply to those separate from your college application.

And there are many that are available for queer students. The HRC, the human rights campaign actually has a really good lookup tool for scholarships for queer students. And you can look at those by state. So typically your qualification for those scholarships is determined by where you live your state of residence.

So depending what state you’re in you’ll know. Different options for queer scholarships.

So how are you guys feeling about the college application process? So we’re [00:18:00] sending out a poll right now. Oh, sorry.

Yes. So how are you feeling about the process in general? Your level of preparedness,

sorry. Two different polls got sent out.

So if you can complete both. Okay. So you guys. Pretty much, we’re very solidly in the prepared, but have some questions, Sage. So that’s really awesome. Better than most of your peers probably. And that’s, better than I was way back when I was applying, if you’re not feeling prepared, that’s completely okay.

And you’re at a great starting point. And hopefully we’re able to add, answer some questions that, are specific to you. Queer life at universities, but also just general application processes. And then [00:19:00] again bulls-eye is a great platform for you to just have somebody that has gone through this process has helped other people through this process and can answer a lot of questions for you.

But yeah, after this, we will speak with you guys about our own college experiences and how you can use the lens of what we just spoke about our specific universe. So thinking about Penn first. So Penn is really special in having an LGBT center and it’s the physical space on campus.

It’s closer than my apartment was to all of the classes. It is like right next to all of the dorms. So it’s a very central location. Also, they have free printing, which sounds really small on and seemed insignificant, but it like drives hoards of students to go there. That’s the way that they incentivize people to come.

And that’s honestly why it’s like a campus, center of campus life. So you go there and Printing, you also get a cup of coffee, which is also free. There you get some water, you paying out, you bring your lunch there. So that’s a really [00:20:00] special, especially because it’s not just undergrad. So you also have some grad students that hang out there.

They’re like a bunch of different rooms. There’s like quiet study spaces. So you can just do your work. And then by virtue of being in that type of space, it’s, one very friendly when you’re walking through the hallways, you get to meet people. Everyone’s like smiling. Especially somewhere that is, founded on queer values.

People are going to be a lot more respectful in that regard than in general. Additionally, they have a lot of just dedicated weekly events. So sometimes it’s just watching a movie with some free pizza that they bring in and it has. Queer undertones. Sometimes it is a full on documentary. And then other times it is just a conversation that, people are going to have about queer people of color or.

The most recent or the recent Supreme court case about title seven, which was about sexual orientation and gender identity in the workplace. [00:21:00] So they have different events that, different students, but some people might be like, you know what? I don’t really want to watch this movie or, and really want to be involved in this like lively understanding of policy.

Whereas other ones might just want something a little bit more lighthearted. You can bring your friends, bring some popcorn, and there’s also some free people. Additionally, we have a number of student groups that are, through and through a career organizations that are somewhat specialized.

So we have a queer people of color group, and then that really helps other students that get connected, whether depending on different racial and ethnic identities that they have. And it’s just like a really supportive group because, people will talk about some of the struggles that they go through.

It’s just a way for even more specialized understanding of others and then another big school another big club in the engineering school and just in the physical sciences is oh, stem, which is out in stem. So they will, have some structured mentoring opportunities. One of my [00:22:00] friends was the president of that.

Senior engineer, mechanical engineers are paired with freshmen sign up to, get some advising and that can really range from, should I take calc three or go into linear algebra first semester? Which sequence should I be taking these courses? But it could also be like, Hey, talking about, this is my first time coming out to people that don’t know me, like, how did you bring it up?

And stuff like that. And just a whole host of opportunities that you can ask somebody that the more things that you have in common, the more likely it is that you can, develop a genuine relationship with them. And additionally, as Zoe mentioned, there are a number of queer organizations on campus that are really queer friendly, and we have a number of them.

Fraternities that are all gender. It’s not, so any gender identity or sexual orientation that you have is accepted there. And a number of these Greek organizations are also just really accepting of their queer students. Additionally, you’ll have some. [00:23:00] Traditional ones that are do go by the gender binary, but are at least pretty open toward sexual orientation and trans students that identify with the gender of that Greek organization.

And lastly, what kind of was great about Philadelphia is that they have a very vibrant gayborhood, which is like walking distance from campus. So that includes like bars and clubs for some older students. But then yeah. Queer life queer book store that, you can just go in and read some really interesting texts, as well as the coffee shops that are around.

So you can get to meet some other queer people, adults in the area, as well as just, get off campus, but still feel like you’re in a safe space. So even in the gayborhood, you will have like street signs painted with rainbows and that’s throughout the year, not just during night.

And lastly, Philadelphia Penn is located in the university city neighborhood of Philadelphia, which means that there’s just like five colleges nearby [00:24:00] that are really large. So you do have a really strong, social mix of people. For example The LGBT center has at Penn has a senior society.

So it’s senior leaders that are queer and they will mix with, temple or Drexel university of sciences St. Joseph’s other Christians from those schools. So you can like very easily expand your circle and get to meet other people that don’t just go to Penn.

Okay. So now I’ll discuss queer life at Yale. So Yale has the office of LGBTQ resources, and I was doing some research because I graduated from Yale, what almost four or five years ago now. And the queer resources have exploded, has always been a historically gay, friendly university, but the breadth of queer experience that they now.[00:25:00]

Cater to and welcome and like actively embrace and support is mind boggling to me. I was so proud to see that they’ve developed all these resources. Has this great page, just search the LGBTQ resources at Yale. And there’s this incredible website that can show you all 80 LGBTQ plus organizations and resources on campus.

So those resources include academic offerings. Student led communities, local new Haven organizations. That’s the city that Yale is in and medical and mental health resources. Yale’s health system through Yale health, you can get hormone treatments, gender affirming surgeries Again the offerings are wonderful.

Yale does also offer mixed gender housing for all undergraduate students. This is a new project in the past two years. Previously, mixed gender housing was just available to seniors and juniors, but now it’s [00:26:00] available to any student. And then just to touch on my experience at Yale I felt that fall of my communities were touched by queer life.

Really involved in the yield farm. My student dance company called a different drum. We were this very avant garde feminist stands group. Also the Slifka center for Jewish life and especially an off-campus house called the greenhouse. I don’t know who lives there now, but just the ethos of that place is so strong.

I can’t believe that. The heart of it has changed. It’s where I met my friends who are part of the bad romantics. There’s the drag group on campus, my friends who identify all along the sexual and gender spectrums. And yeah, just like it’s where I first learned the word hegemony. It was their internet password.

So yeah. I just feel that all of these community is that [00:27:00] I embraced me back and. Challenged heteronormativity and system permittivity and really made me feel at home. And I have no doubt that you can find that as well. I also want to know that like again, Yale has grown so much over the years and the wealth of resources.

No matter how you identify, if you’re questioning, if you don’t know if you’re queer yet, but you’re interested or. You want your friends to be more open-minded like this is available to anyone. I, when I was on campus, I didn’t, I wasn’t out, I didn’t cognizantly know I was queer, but of course I was, and it really impacted the way I walked through the world.

And I felt again, so welcomed.

Awesome. So that is the end of the presentation part of the. And so we will move on to a live Q and a, and we’ll read through the questions that you submit in the [00:28:00] Q and a tab, and we’ll paste it into the public chat so you can see them. And we will read them out loud before we tell our answers, both Zoe and myself, Zoe, and I will give our, input on them.

And yeah, we also have some questions that a number of you guys submitted before when you signed up for the events. So we can go through those as well. And as a heads up, if your Q and a tab, isn’t letting you submit questions, just double check that you joined the webinar part through the custom link in your email, not from the webinar landing page, then I just want to add please feel free to submit more questions about our personal experiences.

Your questions or discomfort about applying to college. And even if it’s outside of being a queer applicant, please ask your questions. We’re happy to answer anything. And if you don’t want to publish your question to everyone, you can DM us separately and we’ll post it for you.[00:29:00]

And so with that in mind, when the first questions that we got was, yeah. If your identity in the LGBTQ plus community is not mentioned in your essay, how do you indicate your identity?

So I can start. So applications include a demographic section and usually that’s questions about your ethnicity, your name, your parents, where you live, but many colleges also include. Sexual identity and gender identity. If they don’t provide that question and you feel it’s central to who you are, then yes.

Please do mention it explicitly in your resumes. Yeah. And so I remember when I was applying to colleges. I didn’t feel super comfortable, explicitly checking off those boxes. So if you’re like that most of them will either allow you to not [00:30:00] answer it or you can put in questioning or something that, you feel you were ready to disclose whether, to them or personally.

Additionally you can just express some of the values that you care about, about like openness and introspection, even though those aren’t, directly about your identity, it just gives some color as to who you are. And it’s important that the emissions are.

It’s not necessarily that they know exactly, how you identify, but just what are, how do you think, how do you like view the world? How do you engage with the world? What do you really care about? And, for some people, like their identity is something that they really care about and is essential to who they are for other students, just there’s something else that speaks to them a little bit more strongly.

You again, as Zoe mentioned earlier, it’s not something that you absolutely need to say do what you feel comfortable with. Okay. So one of the questions that were submitted to [00:31:00] us upon registration was how heteronormative do classes tend to be. I love this question. And I think it really depends what classes you choose to take.

I can speak to yields programs, but programming specifically really yells a very old institution. It has a long history of being wealthy and white and male and CIS rate. These old organizations tend to be that way. So if you are studying in the classics or the roots. Of the humanity is most of the focus does tend to be on those old white guys.

And I can’t tell you how many times I was that like loud person and discussions talking about how, we need to use more gender inclusive language and challenged the patriarchy in these texts. But so that’s also open to you. You can discuss how heteronormative the class. That being said, there are specific gender studies [00:32:00] courses at Yale and like the class called gender justice and the environment taught by a queer professor Aker Jones.

She was so depending on what classes you choose, you will absolutely have classes that are not heteronormative, but you will have to slug through some of them, but challenge it as you do. Absolutely. And yeah, from the pen perspective as well. I think it’s like you will if you feel comfortable with it, definitely challenge it.

I remember, I think that, depending on the courses that I took, I studied finance and international studies. So I was in like warden as well as the cultural arts and sciences and arts and sciences was definitely a lot more queer friendly than I think warden was not the warden was.

Yeah. But I think there, in the humanities, in the social sciences, those types of questions do come up a lot more often. Whereas, in warden, like there were some classes where you would talk about just like home mortgages and stuff like that. And then, some professors would, [00:33:00] yeah.

Specifically, I mentioned you and like your significant other, or if a male student was asking question, they wouldn’t necessarily be like your wife, they would say like your partner or something like that, just to be a little bit more inclusive. So I think that again, it will definitely depend on like the professor, the subject matter because a queer sys classes, they’re going to be a little less like heteronormative than something else.

And the university climate as a whole.

And then another question that we got what colleges are most LGBTQ plus friendly? Are there any that aren’t necessarily hive and there definitely are a number of them? I would say as a whole, a lot of colleges and, since they are more liberal than most you will be able to find a community.

Are really notorious or not very well-known for being queer friendly would be like UC Berkeley, Vassar, UCLA, Penn, Yale [00:34:00] NYU. Zoe, can you help me fill in some more? Yeah. Bard was a super queer school. I was super into. I’m thinking of Wesleyan, Tufts, a lot of small liberal arts colleges, particularly in on the coasts tend to be really queer friendly, but again, Oberlin, middle America, but very queer friendly.

Yeah. And also as Zoe mentioned earlier about Dixon schools in the south, like rice, even though it’s in Texas is also quite queer friendly as is duke. I would say you, you don’t have to like worry about, just one or two schools. That’s oh, these ones are really well-known for being queer friendly.

There are a number of them that hopefully will be to help for you. Okay. So one of our next questions and publishing it now is how does [00:35:00] being a queer applicant influence your chance of admission? This is a great question. And it’s one that doesn’t have a super tangible answer, unfortunately. So there are so many characteristics that affect your chance of admission.

Obviously your grades test scores, extra curriculars, the SCSU. These account for the bulk of the admissions decision but your race, your personal identities, including sexual identity and gender identity, they do come into consideration because colleges want to build diverse, inclusive communities. Not being a current admissions officer. I can’t tell you how much, but I think applying as an out queer applicant could help you marginally. That’s not going to make or break the difference in your application. Everything else. It’s but also the harder [00:36:00] answer is it’s really about who you are, not just the identities you ascribed to colleges want to feel like when they read your applications that you’re talking to them, that they get a sense of who you are.

They like you, they can imagine you on campus making a difference. That’s what’s going to most affect your admissions chances. Yeah. I definitely agree with that. And as though we to the main part is just like really getting to know who you are. If you feel comfortable with it talking about some of your identities just gives you, gives them a better picture of who you are as a whole.

And therefore it just, the more you know about somebody on a more personal level, as opposed to these are my. Like on a deep identity and what their values are, it just, makes it a little bit easier for them to really get a grasp of who you are and hopefully fingers crossed inmates.

And for Penn specifically, Penn was the first school to add in LGBT as, specific act at [00:37:00] aspects of affirmative action. So for them, like it’s a stated policy that like, that is something that they look for. Since estimates are the like short of amongst like gen Z, it’s like over 15% or, identify part of algebra TQ plus.

So they do want to make sure that they are building like a class that is pretty diverse. And now that we are partway through Q and a as a quick break, I also want to tell you about bullseye and how to get on how to get help on your college apps. If you want to work with Zoe or me or any of our other advisors at bullseye.

So bullseye has two advising plans, the starter plan and the scholar plan. They’re both monthly subscriptions, where you get matched with an advisor of your choice and you get one or two hours of one-on-one advising each month, depending on the plan. And as advisors we’ll work with you on your application, no matter where you are in the process.

So if you want help on researching LGBTQ plus [00:38:00] friendly schools, doesn’t align with your other like academic social interests, or you want to write about your identity in your essay. Or you just want to know how to address your background in an interview, we’re here to help.

And we are also sending everyone at this panel, an offer where you will be able to work with either of us in a 15 minute free trial. The offer links to a page where you can schedule a call with Brian Mitchell, who is in charge of bullseye. And he’ll get you set up to choose an advisor and get started.

So here is the or the different plans and that’s also on our website and then, sorry. And here. Yes, here are the plans for. The plan and here is the offer link. It will show up in your chat, in your public chat.[00:39:00]

Wonderful. So Tara to add onto that, working with an advisor, no matter who you choose can be really helpful to your application process. This past admission season, we had bullseye clients get into every single Ivy league school and top 25 school in the country. Our clients rate us 9.8 out of 10.

And that’s because our advisors put a lot of care into working with you. One-on-one every step of your application process. I’ve been doing college advising for the past four years, and I can tell you that it just takes a lot of work and there’s a lot of feeling that comes up in this process. So having someone to talk about it with, to confirm, should I be worrying about this?

Should I let it go? Really helps. So we hope that bulls-eye can help you through this process.

Awesome. And so back to some of the [00:40:00] questions that you guys had for us.

And one question we got was have either of you encountered queer teachers or staff. Out outside of specifically queer programs indefinitely. So Penn’s LGBT center actually publishes a list of professors that have self identified as being queer. And it’s broken down by department.

There were. Finance professors. There are some English professors Spanish, the entire gamut engineering, that self identified as being queer. And so a number of them, you can just reach out to them, get some informal advising from them. So I reached out to a queer finance professor and was like, Hey which courses should I take?

And it had nothing to do with us, both being queer. I just mentioned oh, I saw your name on this list. I wanted to get to know you. But there definitely are professors outside of the specifically focusing on that area. But in [00:41:00] fact, there was a study done by the London school of economics and queer people are vastly overrepresented in university teaching.

So hopefully that makes it easier for you guys to find some connection with the professor. Yeah I don’t have much to add except that yes, I’ve definitely encountered queer teachers outside of specifically gender studies programs and queer studies program. My major was in religious studies and even in that very small department, I had at least two queer professors.

Yeah. And I think, Queerness is not the only thing that creates commonality between people, but it’s a nice starting point to just have that alongside, Hey, I like your class material. So in short, yes, it’s available. I think another thing you can do in your research is in addition to seeing if colleges offer strong resources for students, Who are queer, do they also offer those resources to their staff and [00:42:00] faculty?

If they do, it’s going to be more likely that you’ll have more queer teachers.

So let’s see. I’ll find another question that was pre-registered. So here’s one question. It’s can you say you’re LGBT plus even if closeted and I’ll publish that now. So the answer is absolutely. You do not have to prove that you’re out to your family or your friends or your community is if you want to indicate that you, your sexual or gender identity on your applications, you absolutely can.

Yeah. And as I mentioned, I wasn’t out to myself or the world in college. So I certainly wasn’t when I was applying to college it was not a part of my application, but it was a part of the way I walked to the world and a part of the way I navigated deal. So no ma no matter if you’re out or not, or how comfortable you feel [00:43:00] discussing your identity you will have a place in this process.

Absolutely. And I was in the very much same boat. And can’t really add to that, but what matters is who you are and you don’t have to worry about your level of outness and that’s for you and you only another question that we got was about transitioning as while in college. And so you definitely want to do some more research on that college and their health plan and get a sense of, what types of specific resources did they have.

For example, Penn, I know if you, on Penn student insurance, you can they will help, cover some of, the surgeries as well as the medicine that you would need. So definitely. Do some more specific research. I know that can be it is a huge financial burden, so gearing your search.

That way might be really helpful for if that is something that [00:44:00] you would want to be doing well in college. And anecdotally from Penn, a number of students that I know have transitioned or in college. So it’s on your terms and Your doctor’s terms and how you feel best to proceed.

Yeah. Absolutely. To echo that not much to add you can absolutely come out. You can absolutely transition. Yeah. I saw a couple of friends who were coming to terms with their gender identity is and transition their pronouns. Even without doing any physical transitioning and that was fully accepted on campus.

Again, I’ve been really impressed by y’all’s current resources. They have clear plans for how you can update your pronouns within the administration, change your net ID and whatnot. And then you’ll health also supports hormone treatment and surgery is I think it may still be pricey but the actual treatments are available.

Okay.[00:45:00]

Okay. So another question. So what should I keep in mind as an LGBTQ student in terms of dating LGBT resources, academics, et cetera. I think in many ways we answered a lot of those questions, right? The sorts of organizations you want to look out for as a queer student the academic offerings you want to look out for.

In terms of gender, I think it’s best to probably talk to either current students or students who very recently graduated. They can tell you what the dating scene looks like. Is there an all ages bar you can go to, to meet people or a queer dance night? If you like using apps, what is the availability?

Both within the college campus and the community that’s around you? It varies a lot location to location. So yeah, all I can say there is [00:46:00] talk to students and there’ll be able to tell you on the ground, what dating looks like as a queer student. Yeah, I definitely agree. I think that the current students or recently graduated students would be able to give you a good sense of that.

I just graduated from Penn. So for Penn especially. Let’s see, like sophomores, juniors and seniors, there is a pretty heavy reliance on, going to, bars and clubs downtown. Additionally there are some like just, school-wide queer parties, especially for Halloween that a lot of students will go to and just meet other Christians that way.

The dating apps are really popular and I would say are probably one of the most common ways for students to. And another question we got was about, roommate issues, as, if you are queer and finding ways to respect one another. I think it’s important to, find ways that you can speak with your [00:47:00] roommate.

You don’t even need to come out to them, but you can just set personal boundaries, whether that would be. If go on a date with someone and say, I like you not to mention to anybody else or anything along those lines. I think, this is just like a general roommate thing.

A lot of schools will help you, do roommate like quizzes that will best pair you with someone like have similar interests and Of like respect stuff, like living styles as you, so that will hopefully, mitigate it, just being like a completely random person that you don’t know at all.

But I think like you. Can do as you feel comfortable. So like pretty early on, if you just want to come out to them, if you don’t feel comfortable, I would say maybe you could just in the roommate survey when you’re, accepting your spot at that college, just say oh, I’d prefer a queer roommate, a lot of schools that will let you choose roommates.

Like the, there will be like an admitted students. Facebook group. Yeah. Unofficial. It’s [00:48:00] not sanctioned by the college, but a lot of students will just create like a spreadsheet of I wake up early. I like to go to the gym or I sleep really late. So I want someone else that like sleeps late and you can just say oh, like I am a queer student.

Or you could just even just sit idly and look to see what other people put in. If somebody else, like self identifies as being queer, you can just like DM them and be like, Hey, like I’m someone. So I saw your post. I had a couple of questions about rooming together. Yeah. I don’t have much to add onto that.

There was a very similar question about. Is choosing a roommate, any different as a person in the LGBTQ plus community, as our mind talked about, like in some cases you can have some agency in choosing your roommate. That was not my experience at Yale and unapplied. What like eight years ago now almost nine, 10.

You are. Assigned [00:49:00] roommates based on a survey you submitted, and those surveys will likely include sexual identity. What genders you feel comfortable living with if you specifically want mixed gender housing and that will play into who you’re matched with. I’ll also say that if you’re not allowed to choose your roommate and something feels deeply.

Upsetting to you or triggering to you and your assignment, and you can always advocate for yourself. I think a lot of colleges offer this and I know Yale did specifically that there are some singles available for people with special circumstances, be it I’m transitioning. And I feel I need that privacy and that safe space to myself, whether it’s about accessibility for, I’m in a wheelchair.

You can get accommodated housing as necessary.

And so that is the end of our panel. I had a really [00:50:00] great time answering your questions in before you go out, rescind the offer to you all, where you can talk to either one of us for 15. For free as a trial and we can help you get started on your college app journey. Okay.

And so I hope this was helpful to you and that you feel more prepared about the college app process. If you have any additional questions, we also send out a feedback form leader this evening. We can drop any other questions. And our next webinar will be in two days on Tuesday. It will be about what summer opportunities you can pursue and how to find them during COVID-19.

So if you’re interested, the webinar will redirect you to that page when you exit. Thank you so much for coming tonight. Panel take care. Bye bye.