<p>I am biologically a URM (latino), but i was adopted when I was a baby into a white family that could afford prep school and college. Essentially, I am not disadvantaged economically, or in terms of educational oppurtunities available to me. Ethically, I feel that applying as a URM is in a way dishonest, due to the fact that it is supposed to give a boost to those with fewer resources available. Ethics aside, however, I am indeed a URM and I feel that applying as one could help my chances of med school admission. Should I apply as a URM? Will medical schools see my educational and economic background and think that I’m being unethical and/or misleading? Obviously medical schools aren’t looking for pure, biological diversity, but a diversity in terms of life experiences, blah blah blah. However, simply BEING latino qualifies me as a URM. What are your thoughts?</p>
<p>“Should I apply as a URM?”</p>
<p>Are you seriously asking us to make this decision for you? You already realize that you are not the type of person affirmative action was intended to help. The rest is up to you. This is an ethical question and there is no way for us to decide for you.</p>
<p>Strategically:</p>
<p>First, URM status is, strictly-speaking, self-declared. That is, you cannot be prosecuted under any circumstances for “lying”, since you and you alone are permitted to determine your race. I (not black) could in theory declare myself black, and medical schools would not have the ability to impose official sanctions on me for it. Unoffifical sanctions, of course, are another matter, so this is a relatively unimportant point.</p>
<p>Second, one interpretation of recent trends is that most admissions processes may not ACTUALLY be looking for underrepresented minorities from an ideological standpoint - that they are doing this to represent other interests (say, placating their faculty). A close examination of their actual behavior reveals that schools exploit loopholes to make their ratios appear more URM friendly: for example, the recent trend of admitting fewer African-American candidates and more African (recent immigrant) candidates, who tend to be more affluent. In other words, schools will be perfectly content to accept whatever you tell them short of the sort of dishonesty that will get them in trouble. This is why Asian people, even with Asian names (i.e. “Wang” or “Chang”), should refuse to declare their race: admissions committees will know you’re Asian, but they don’t have to treat you as such unless you tell them officially. According to this argument, schools will be perfectly content to consider you Latino unless are so egregiously lying that they could get in trouble for it.</p>
<p>I’ve forgotten what my third point was, but it probably had to do with the fact that I believe you’re perfectly covered - the blood connection is the hardest to dispute, which is why Native American status can work even in very assimilated scenarios with 1/8 blood.</p>
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<p>I do have another point for you, however, and that’s that the ethics of it depend very heavily on what you think of affirmative action.</p>
<p>One perspective is that at high levels of schooling, not only does AA fail to really benefit poor kids, it is not even meant to do so. Affirmative action is as much about racial diversity as it is about cultural diversity, and it’s certainly not about socioeconomic diversity, or else we’d have socioeconomic AA, and schools like Harvard would set aside 3% of their endowments to pay for tuition in perpetuity. If you believe that the entire program is one giant, exploitative loophole, then using one exploitative loophole in the middle of a bigger one is almost like a double-negative.</p>
<p>However, if you believe strongly that affirmative action represents a principle, then I think the ethics of it should prompt you to refuse to declare.</p>
<p>Now, I do have one last consideration to mention. Medical schools are, in fact, looking for young people of character. A couple have essays regarding moral dilemmas. Should you choose not to declare yourself underrepresented - the choice I would admire the most - then I believe this would be worth discussing in interviews and secondaries. Explain why you chose not to declare yourself as a URM; I believe that will be an effective demonstration of your integrity. I do not, however, believe it will come close to offsetting the value of race in the admissions process.</p>