ErlindaP

Hi Phantasmagoric,

I don't think you should feel that your admission decision would mean less if you check the Native American box. College Admissions officers give a boost to all sorts of things in the process of "building a class." It is not all based on scores and grades. LOTS of people get a boost because their parents are alums. If you are the kid of a celebrity that gets you a boost (I'm not kidding.) Most colleges give a boost to people who can pay full tuition. Then they look for the person who can fill the goaly on the Lacross team roster position, or the cellist for the orchestra. Your knowledge of your language and culture will make a huge contribution to the depth of discussion in any college that is even remotely worth it's salt. Colleges want this depth and complexity and they look for every way they can find to create it. If a tycoon's kid is getting a boost because their Dad might pay for the new science building, there is no reason that you shouldn't get a boost because you have something unique to contribute to classroom discussions. The colleges will not admit you if they don't think you can handle the work. Something a lot of people don't understand is that building a class this way benefits all the students and the institution, not just the kids who are getting a boost. The college needs the lacross player, the cellist, the new science center and the kids who bring a unique perspective and set of life experiences to the mix.

windy

I see no reason why a person with even 1/128 Native American heritage should not receive recognition. A person who is Chinese gets URM status and the last time I looked there were 1,321,851,888 (July 2007 est.)
Chinese in the world. 1 divided by 1,321,851,888 is a lot smaller than 1/128th.

nyc

Asian students are not usually considered urm.

andreaaaaaa

yeah, chinese people are NOT urm.

and that makes no sense. that is not how heritage works at all.....how many people that are of a certain ethnic group or race does not matter at all when calculating your personal heritage.

kyledavid80

Chinese and other Asians are considered minorities, but not underrepresented ones -- rather, overrepresented ones.

Gryffon5147

^ Which could get us into a whole new debate about affirmative action, selective discrimination, who's right, who's wrong etc, etc. Let's get back to the topic, hey?

windy

If your heritage occupies a special place in your being and contributes to your self-esteem, and is true, then by all means one should be proud to claim it, regardless of any arbitrary percentages. Hopefully we have seen the end of the days when one drop of blood was all it took to deny a person of their rights. How a private educational institution chooses to treat ethnicity is not likely to be readily discernable and should be examined on a case by case basis. What anyone else thinks of a person’s right to claim their heritage is meaningless.

MODERATOR'S NOTE:

This thread has been closed for a while, but once had a lot of views. The current thread on the overall issue

"Race" in College Admissions FAQ & Discussion 4

has up-to-date information.