<p>I mean, I’ve been surprised at the colleges I’ve been accepted into. Colleges I never really thought I had a chance of getting into (MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Hopkins). </p>
<p>My grades are only so-so, on my mid year report I had a unweighted 3.77, weighted 4.52, my SAT scores are only slightly above average with 2040 SAT1, 660 SAT2Lit, 720SAT2Math2, 650 SAT2Physics. I have a number of extracurriculars though. Not sports, but a wide range of activities.</p>
<p>How big a role did me being African American play in me getting into those colleges? When I first got into MIT, I was thinking it was a big factor but seeing more acceptance letters I’m thinking maybe they see me as one of their better admissions (maybe they just really enjoyed my essays)</p>
<p>First off, I congratulate you on your acceptances. MIT, CMU, JHU are all excellent, and it looks like you were accepted into many others, so you have great freedom of choice.</p>
<p>To answer your question, I have to say that it probably played a bigger role than you’d like .</p>
<p>If our nation as a whole is the benchmark, then a 2040 is by no means a bad score. (Most students don’t score that high.) Unfortunately, MIT, CMU, and JHU aren’t just at the level of “our nation as a whole”; that’s why they’re elite institutions. A 2040 would at most place you in the lower part of the middle 50%.</p>
<p>But, don’t worry, as the saying goes, if they admitted you, then you were qualified. Not only can you handle their coursework, but you can also thrive in such environments.</p>
<p>I finish my post by noting that the people who say “race doesn’t play that big of a role” are also the ones who are most adamantly against race-blind admissions.</p>
<p>All very selective U’s are committed to racial diversity. That doesn’t detract from their status as very selective.</p>
<p>Those 3 very illustrious institutions didn’t “just enjoy your essays.” They obviously thought you made the grade. I also can point to recent admissions from my d’s very elite, very rigorous, and very white high school to those 3 U’s in particular. The students had stats similar to yours. In a couple of cases the unweighted GPA was only slightly higher – not enough to make a difference. (Their weighted was not higher than yours.) All 3 are Caucasian.</p>
<p>Congrats. I’ll echo the previous two posters. Its quite possible that your race was an important part of the mix of reasons for why MIT, JHU and CMU accepted you, all three do practice affirmative-action. However, its also quite possible that your race was not a deciding factor.</p>
<p>For whatever other reasons the admissions officers chose to accept you, the primary reason why you were accepted was because they believe that you will succeed at their university, will get a good education there, and will enhance the university over the next four years.</p>
<p>Again, with reference to the 3 white anglo admits (recent) that I mentioned above. Their unweighted, while slightly higher in one case, was offset by a slightly lower weighted GPA. The admissions committees judged that you, like them, were capable of handling the challenging curriculum at their schools. With regard to your essays: There are students with those stats, URM students, who cannot express themselves well and thus would <em>not</em> be up to the challenge of these 3 institutions. It wasn’t that they “just enjoyed” your essays. Your essays were a check against all the other elements of your application, verifying the whole package.</p>
<p>Diversity is a pillar for all the top schools. That being said, any applicant that brings something unique to the student population will get an extra look. Is being an URM unique? Sure. So is being an Olympic medalist or Intel winner or extensive overseas experience or being the child of a large donor.</p>
<p>I don’t think the Intel winner is asking himself/herself: “Hmmm. Did my Intel recognition make a difference in being admitted to ___?” Of course it did. And there’s nothing wrong with it. Don’t second guess yourself. </p>
<p>I’m a “represented minority” (chinese) and relative to other of this designation, my grades & scores were strong but probably didn’t awe anyone. However besides my excellent academics, I was a first generation collegian, grew up in a bluecollar environment, attended inner-city schools, had extreme leadership roles in a predominantly black school community, and from my essays – showed that I thought deeply about the people and environment around me. </p>
<p>With this package, I was accepted at all my schools – eventually matriculating at an Ivy of which I now serve as an alumni recruiter (I recruit back in my old school district too – those kids really get a kick out of seeing a Chinese guy who was a graduate of their school system telling them how it is to go off to an Ivy school).</p>
<p>Know that the schools that accepted you expect that you’ll “bring the whole package” to their campuses, will enhance them and your slot is deserved.</p>
<p>How about for Princeton? Is it as big an impact? I mean, I’m happy that I got in but I can’t help but feel that I was a little under qualified compared to others who did and didn’t…</p>
<p>Princeton, like many other American universities, ostensibly commits to “diversity.” Their media relations manager, Ms. Cass Cliatt, has stated that if there is sufficient public interest, Princeton will release data that shows the breakdown of admission rates by ethnicity, score range, location, and so forth. When several concerned students sent her e-mails, she changed her tone and said that Princeton would never reveal such information because it would always be “miscontrued.”</p>
<p>In short, they say it doesn’t have a big impact but won’t let go of it.</p>
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<p>You shouldn’t feel this way. As previously said, you are in, therefore they believe in your abilities.</p>
<p>Put it like this, i have friend who had FANTASTIC scores, her father was a well known alumni of a certain ivy (the one she applied to), she went to a top private school, had recommendations from people on the admissions board and she was native american/african-american, and she got rejected.</p>
<p>Improvements: you’re one anecdote doesn’t prove your assertion. The fact is that URMs bring to the table one set of factors that CAN assist one’s chances of being offered admissions. As for your friend, the reason for her not being admitted are only known by the adcom. Our speculation about it can only be speculation.</p>
<p>Well, I don’t think race will be the SOUL reason you get into College anymore… sure it might help a little, they want diverse schools, but by no reason is it a reason in it’s self</p>
<p>You’re absolutely right Improvements. Frankly, the top HS applicants who are URMs generally have many doors open for them because they are fewer than RMs or majority students. </p>
<p>I doubt that race w/o other metrics of potential success would be the sole consideration for any 4-year US colleges.</p>
<p>i dont think it really helped me accept i got a full ride to UMD (but i dont want to go there) i didn’t get into MIT or georgetown and i got waitlisted at Penn when the other person admitted at my school was asian… i got into stern but i didn’t get anything special (only 12,000 in scholarships)</p>
<p>Why do we still deny that affirmative action exists? RACE HELPS!!! It doesn’t help in every case. If you’re African American and you have a 2300 SAT score, you don’t need help to get into Harvard. However, looking at group statistics (rather than individual anecdotes), it is very clear that being a URM confers significant benefits in college admissions (approx. 150 SAT points in Yale admissions for example). When the UC’s stopped using AA, their minority enrollment collapsed. It’s not even an argument of whether AA is good or bad, but I’m amazed at the number of people who still try to deny that it exists.</p>
<p>I am almost positive that being a minority is what got me rejected from Harvard and Yale and waitlisted at Brown. Here’s why:</p>
<p>I am African American, come from a middle class single parent home and go to an underprivileged urban school in San Francisco (which has a moderately horrible school district.) On paper, I should be a walking stereotype, but I am a preppy, articulate and high achieving student. I interviewed for three Ivies (Harvard, Yale and Brown) and my Harvard and Yale interviews were obscenely good (I had good chemistry with both of the interviewers. I was also dressed in very professional and conservative attire.) At my Brown interview however, I was wearing streetclothes (a track jacket and jeans) and the interview was absolutely horrible. I think that I wasn’t urban enough to fit any kind of quota that Harvard or Yale has to fill. The fact that I have light skin and appear biracial didn’t help. </p>
<p>There are plenty of preppy blacks who went to prep school, so why would they want a preppy black student from a public school? I think if I had gone into my interviews with more of an urban look and feel, I would have had a much better chance of getting accepted.</p>