URM question

Colleges & Universities Yale University
1

<p>I recently saw a post about a hispanic who scored 1950 sat, comparable to a 29 on the act. People said that he has a great chance of admission because he is hispanic and hispanics usually come from disadvantaged backgrounds. If I have a disadvantaged background, am I still considered a urm??</p>

<p>My stats
act=29 (1st time, but will retake hoping for 30 or above)
satII us history(700) chemistry (730)
10 ap (Most rigorous possible) (scored mostly 4 and a few 5)by end of senior year (mostly A and A-) AP scholar with distinction
GPA=4.15/4.0
no class rank, but would be top 3% out of 700 students.
cello player since 4ht grade, amnesty international (10,11,12), math team(11, 12) nhs (11,12) volunteer at hospital(11,12) tutor children(10,11,12), led a mandatory class of about 20 students (only leadership)
first generation college person, biracial (asian caucasion), disadvantaged (low income, parent at mental hospital, divorced, all happened during high school but managed to keep up my grades)</p>

<p>Expecting good recs and excellent essay. I displayed tremendous improvement since 9th grade. I didn’t grow up in an academic atmosphere. Never really exposed to books or anything. Decided to challenge myself with ap and started to do well in school. (ACT score jumped from 19-29 in one year)</p>

2

<p>No. URM is simply a racial category and does not have anything to do with disadvantaged backgrounds per se. In order to be a URM, you need to be Hispanic, African American, or Native American. Caucasians, Asians (East and South), and Jews are all overrepresented. However, your disadvantaged background should help you, if the schools know about it. (Your best bet would be through your counselor recommendation.)</p>

3

<p>Asians still are “helped” by affirmative action. i know Asians at Dartmouth that got in with an SAT score that was less than 1250, so please, don’t generalize like that.</p>

4

<p>It depends on which school one applies to… in some colleges Asians are not over represented, and the demand for them is higher than in schools to which many Asian students apply.</p>

5

<p>At Harvard, Yale, and many other schools, Asians certainly are not helped by affirmative action. The same goes for the rest of the top 25 schools (research universities mainly). On the other hand, many liberal arts colleges have an underrepresentation of Asians.
There are places where whites are underrepresented too, in particular historically black colleges and universities. However, just because I can name these exceptions doesn’t mean that the generalization I made doesn’t hold.</p>