<p>…and then enough URM applicants are admitted until the student body has a satisfactory percentage of them, or are they evaluated together with everyone else but just given an extra “push” when it comes to deciding?</p>
<p>No one can say for sure.</p>
<p>I would guess that its different for the school. However I know that at UVA they split up applicants by many different demo-graphs. Geography, Legacy Status, intended college. Hopefully that helps you out somewhat.</p>
<p>Why does it matter? Like those in all the other pools, URMs are compared with each other and the colleges ‘somehow’ come up with the percentage they want every year.</p>
<p>The latter I think is much more common. If I’ve read the legal precedent correctly the former is a violation of the 14th Amendment (provided it’s a state school).</p>
<p>They probably are evaluated against each other, just like colleges pin legacies, recruited athletes, ORMs, etc. against each other.</p>
<p>See the percentage of URMs a school takes from year to year. If it stays about the same or else it creeps up a teeny little bit each year or so, draw your own conclusions. Statistics and probability would dictate that there would be measurable yearly swings. If there are not, you can rest assured that the numbers are cooked via applications being placed into separate piles in order to achieve a specific numeric goal. Is it right? Is it moral? Who knows? It simply is.</p>