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<p>How colleges decide admission factors is up to each college. A person who checks “Hispanic or Latino” in answer to that first question on a federal ethnicity questionnaire and then checks “Asian” for the second question, on “race,” will be reported to the federal government as Hispanic. But what a college does to decide who (if anyone) gets an admission consideration for ethnicity is up to each college. </p>
<p>Good luck on your applications.</p>
<p>An article I found while searching the Web: </p>
<p>[MIT</a> Press Journals - Review of Economics and Statistics - Abstract](<a href=“http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/0034653043125211]MIT”>http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/0034653043125211)</p>
<p>Hi. I’m half Chinese and half Caucasian. I have a German last name. When checking the race box should I check: White, Asian or Other? On some applications there is a Biracial/Multiracial box. I was born in Hong Kong and plan on discussing my biracial background in my UC essay about diversity. Should I refrain from doing that because there is more competition if one is Asian?</p>
<p>Bumppppppp</p>
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<p>Then biracial it is…?</p>
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<p>You’re going to refrain from writing about an issue you want to write about and that might mean something to you (your racial background) because of “competition?” Wow, ok.</p>
<p>Yeah actually I would. If discussing my racial background hurts my chances, of course I’m not going to write about it. I have lots of other issues that mean something to me that I could write about. Now that we’ve gotten that cleared up, back to my original question: would writing about my ethnicity work to my disadvantage?</p>
<p>A history of federal race categories in medical research: </p>
<p>[N</a> C H S - N H I S - History of race and Hispanic origin](<a href=“NCHS - 404 Error - Resource Not Available”>NCHS - 404 Error - Resource Not Available)</p>
<p><a href=“%5Burl=http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1063102657-post715.html]#715[/url]”>quote</a> …Anyway, I’m an Asian, so would not checking be less of a detriment than admitting it?..
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<p>Food for thought: </p>
<p>Inside Higher Ed: [Too</a> Asian?](<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/10/10/asian]Too”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/10/10/asian):</p>
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<p>As [tokenadult</a> has noted](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1063079065-post661.html]tokenadult”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1063079065-post661.html), most colleges are sparing in revealing enough data to show how much impact their affirmative action policies have. In light of this, applicants should consider whether-or-not providing any ‘race/ethnicity’ data is warranted. A reasonable question to an institution would be, “Just how exactly will the ‘race/ethnicity’ information in an application be utilized?” If the college’s response is not to your satisfaction, you have every right not to include it on your application.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the only way to guarantee that an applicant will be evaluated on his/her merits without regard to ‘race/ethnicity’ is to not fill out this section of the application. This is an option students are increasingly taking advantage of. If all applicants did so, colleges would be forced to implement a strictly ‘race/ethnicity’-neutral evaluation of all applications: No Data, No ‘race/ethnicity’-based evaluations. This may be the message that the large number of individuals not filling out the ‘race/ethnicity’ section of applications are actually sending to colleges.</p>
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<p>Just as a personal example, I have a friend who is Chinese and Hungarian Jewish (born in the US, if it matters), and she wrote her essay on race. She was waitlisted at Harvard, but got in. Her sister goes there too, and stated her race, though I don’t know what her essays were about. Her brother stated his race and he went to Stanford. All of them, however, have Asian last names as their father is the Chinese one, so they couldn’t really choose to “hide it.” But if that’s the subject you really want to write about, I think that you should.</p>
<p>I have a relative who used to work in Cornell’s admission office and she told me that one of the first things they do is look at your last name. She said that especially if your last name is Asian (which you can’t really hide) then a lot of times, they automatically waitlist you/defer you.
I would only write about your biracial ethnicity if you are sure that your essay would be unique, otherwise I think it might be a detriment.</p>
<p>I wonder if being Afghan increases my chances of admission considering my parents are refugees from the Soviet Invasion. I don’t think I have much competition, considering Afghan-Americans aren’t too bright—and there’s only about 200,000 of us.</p>
<p>Also, I’m no bootleg quarter or eighth Afghan—I’m 100% Afghan. Parents are both from Afghanistan, and both of their parents, and both of their parents. I wonder if that is an admission boost.</p>
<p>What do you think?</p>
<p>Affirmative Action is far less potent than legacy status and athletic recruiting, both of which add essentially nothing to very top universities.</p>
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<p>Afghans are probably considered white.</p>
<p>Just like the rest of the Middle-East.</p>
<p>But Afghans are a minority in the United States, and I believe have a rather interesting family background than, say, Western-European “whites.”</p>
<p>I’m just wondering if anyone else feels similarly.</p>
<p>This might be a stupid question:</p>
<p>Is the URM “advantage” similar in graduate school admissions? For example at UChicago, the acceptance rate for African Americans(Undergraduate level) is 48.7%(35%< regularly). Would graduate schools(Primarily medical schools) give such a “boost” to URM’s or is it to a lesser extent?</p>
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<p>The very little I know about med school admissions tells me that they’re much less holistic than undergrad admissions and that your MCAT score and GPA matter a lot.</p>
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<p>How would you happen to know this?</p>
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<p>I think they do, at least for law schools.</p>
<p>^ A study performed by UChicago students revealed that without racial-based affirmative action, over 90% of African-American students at “elite” law schools would not have been admitted at those schools. Affirmative action is something that affects a lot more than undergrad college; it extends to grad school and job offers.</p>
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Athletics adds to prestige, reputation, interest, and school spirit. As a prospective college student-athlete I am completely turned off by Caltech’s lack of a competitive athletic program, for instance, and I’m sure it is a sentiment felt by many other people.</p>
<p>Legacy admits might be able to increase the closeness of ties between the alma mater and the alum, hence creating more endowment.</p>
<p>I don’t agree necessarily with how low the bar drops for each demographic, but to deny the value of either (especially athletics) is ludicrous.</p>
<p>And at very top schools, legacy factors are becoming little more than tips for applicants. Unless an applicant’s family has donated millions, it is simply a slight boost to one’s application, a boost that varies from school to school.</p>
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<p>The fact of the matter is that Caltech could give a crap if you care about athletics. It’s still a supremely prestigious institution with highly competitive admissions. Same thing for HYPM (Stanford is a notable exception). Athletics add absolutely nothing for HYPCM’s prestige, school spirit or revenue. All of those aspects of the colleges come from their history and academic prowress. That’s part of the reason those schools they can afford to maintain D-1 status without offering athletic scholarships. They don’t need good football or basketball teams because no one cares about HYPCM’s football or basketball teams. Go to one of their games. They can barely fill their stadiums. Athletes add nothing. There’s no ‘school spirit’ in the traditional state school sense at the top schools. </p>
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<p>Alumni donations account for such a small part of the top school’s endowment that they’re almost negligible. They certainly don’t justify alumni status.</p>