I’m Lebanese (middle eastern country) American. Since Lebanon has been occupied by many different culture and has been a large part of history, (Africans, Persians, Europeans, etc.) the racial appearance of Lebanese people ranges accordingly. I look European, so in the admissions process would they count me as white or arab? Also, is there even an arab application pool or do they just count as white? I’ve been wondering this for a while, so thanks for answers in advance!
I don’t think they have a picture of you and I doubt that the AOs would ask your interviewer of your physical features.
Alright I just realized how dumb of a question that was. Ignore the first question please lol. I know how they have pools for different groups of people, but are they specific? Like would it just be white and people of color, or would they have white, hispanic, black, asian, etc?
It doesn’t really matter as both white and middle eastern are well represented in BS, so it won’t give you an edge. From watching videos on youtube and such, they don’t necessarily have quotas to fill if that’s what you mean by pools. It’s not like they say we need x amount of white people and y amount of underrepresented minorities. They want to create as diverse a class as possible, not only in terms of race but interests and sports and everything else that plays a part in the application as well.
If your basic question is: Do AOs sit around and wonder how they are going to fill their Arab pool? No.
If there is any applicant to a BS that does not know this, I would posit that the chances for M9 are extremely low.
Lebanese-American, not an international applicant… is it still limited as you say?
I understood you the first time, and made no reference on this thread to the uphill challenges all international applicants face.
I did not say that it was limited. I did, however, imply that there is no advantage.
I’m not sure how much of this you already know and what relates to your question, but here are the basics…
Students of color will include all non-white students (black, hispanic, and asian being the largest subgroups). Of students of color, black and hispanic students are considered under represented minorities (URMs) and asians are considered over represented minorities (ORMs). At the college level, URMs are often given preference by admissions (which is being or has been challenged in several states, such as TX and MI). ORMs are actually at a disadvantage when applying to some colleges (highly selective and state colleges). That is the subject of a current lawsuit against Harvard. So for colleges, for the time being, being a URM is a “hook”, and being an ORM is the opposite. I’m not exactly sure about BSs, but I suspect it is similar.
BSs report %students of color on their marketing material and websites, whereas most colleges report %black, hispanic, asian, and even native american, Hawaiian, and other. IMO, if they are reporting something, you can bet THAT is what they are tracking and engineering in the admissions process. Colleges often have larger student bodies, so they can get more granular than BSs, particularly within a single year. But that’s just my guess…only the AOs know what exactly goes on behind the curtain.
As should be clear to you now by the comment posted, as a Lebanese-American, you are grouped with Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, German-Americans, and many other ethic or mixed ethnic groups under Caucasian/white. That and a quarter will buy you a gumball.
No – being a Lebanese American will not help in any way. You will not be lumped in with the URM group. It probably won’t hurt either. You can’t change your race, so instead channel your energies towards things that you have control over (grades, scores, ECs, etc)