<p>Colleges may vary in how THEY apply any affirmative action policies they may or may not have, but all you need is “community attachment” to be an American Indian by the federal definitions, and that is not defined in detail. There isn’t any requirement (for checking off a box on the form) for tribal registration, although I have heard of colleges that ask for evidence of that from applicants who self-identify as American Indian applicants.</p>
<p>maybe they won’t question it because of name…or else I need to spend a lot of time with the Oklahoma Dapt. of Health</p>
<p>A participant on another College Confidential thread kindly shared a link to the latest article from the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, the lead journal on its subject, showing figures for applications, acceptances, and enrollments by black students at various outstanding universities and colleges. </p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.jbhe.com/firstyearenrolls.html]JBHE[/url”>http://www.jbhe.com/firstyearenrolls.html]JBHE[/url</a>] </p>
<p>You can see that some colleges declined to provide full information in the form that the journal requested. The information requested did not include any attempt to stratify applicants into groups by high school grades, extracurricular activities, or other characteristics that might be valued by colleges as admission criteria.</p>
<p>Yale Daily News article about the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education survey findings about various colleges: </p>
<p>[Yale</a> Daily News - Univ. ranked 7th for black frosh](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/18863]Yale”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/18863)</p>
<p>Bringing this to the top because there is an thread in Parents Forum that relates to the last two posts and I don’t know how to link it.</p>
<p>Thanks for the mention of the other thread on the Parents Forum. I’ll go look for that. </p>
<p>AFTER EDIT: The other thread started to experience topic drift into the topic of this thread, so now about two dozen posts from that thread have been merged here. Carry on according to the Terms of Service.</p>
<p>Plainsman, I’ll bet anything that students from Africa are not counted as “African-Americans” anywhere. However, in my area (and I suspect in other areas, too) there are substantial numbers of African and Caribbean immigrants whose kids – citizens or legal residents of the U.S., educated in U.S. schools – apply to college just like the rest of their classmates. (Just like, for example, a certain very well-known politician.) And I would be surprised if those students weren’t included in the “African-American” numbers. I don’t know how you would exclude them, or how you would argue that it was appropriate to do that. </p>
<p>Granted, there are cultural differences between them and other parts of the African-American community, but there are plenty of other cultural differences within that community that do not involve the parents’ natonal origins. And there are cultural differences within other communities, too – “Hispanic” as applied to Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Dominican communities (not to mention 20 others) covers an awful lot of ground, even before you look at differences between people within each national subgroup. “Irish” subsumes a virtual civil war until recently, and even within a small group like “Jewish” the range is vast.</p>
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<p>Any student who is not a US citizen or permenent green card resident, is an international student. Any student who is a US citizen or perment resident is not an international student. Those rules apply equally to white, Latino/a, Asian American, and Black students. </p>
<p>You seem to be suggesting that different rules should apply to Black students? Should we also have different categories for Asian Americans from Japan and Thailand? For Latino/a students from Mexico and Chile?</p>
<p>Where does it end? Is enough ever going to be enough?</p>
<p>Interesteddad: You completely misread my post. I’m saying different rules are being applied by the schools when it comes to blacks and I don’t like it. Read Sybbie’s post #47 about Dartmouth. I agree with you there should not be different rules.</p>
<p>Colleges are playing fast and loose when it comes to counting “blacks/African Americans” versus who is “international,” despite government classifications. It’s the dirty little secret in academia, especially with the most selective schools. They really have only about half the genuine African AMERICANS that the report. The rest of the “blacks” are really internationals. But their numbers are “needed” to pad the “black” category more than they are needed to boost the “international” numbers. They should be busted for doing this stuff. They should work harder to find true African AMERICAN students. But if they’re already working as hard as they can, then at least tell the raw truth about the number of African Americans. The scion of a Nigerian doctor, educated in British boarding schools before matriculating at Swarthmore, Dartmouth or Princeton is an “international” not a minority in the spirit of America’s goal to help members of traditionally excluded/disadvantaged groups in this country.</p>
<p>“Colleges are playing fast and loose when it comes to counting “blacks/African Americans” versus who is “international,” despite government classifications.”</p>
<p>Can you be specific by listing those colleges, and your source?</p>
<p>Is there a sanction for violating the Common Data Set instruction for section B2 ‘Include international students only in the category “Nonresident aliens.”’?</p>
<p>Plainsman:</p>
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<p>You are making sweeping indictments that are totally false and totally unfair. Please show me one single instance where Swarthmore College or Williams College or Amherst College or Harvard or Yale or Princeton has counted an International student as a domestic student. Again, international student has a very specific meaning: a student who is not a US citizen or green card holder. You’ve made the charge. Back it up.</p>
<p>As for “genuine” blacks (versus what? “imitation” blacks?), I’m afraid those are distinctions that are well above my my pay grade. I, personally, find that whole topic rather distasteful. I’m really sorry if, after 35 years of doing everything they can imagine including throwing ridiculous amounts of money at the issue to enroll black students, elite colleges are enrolling students that you deem to be the “wrong” kind of black students.</p>
<p>The more I hear nonsense like this, the more I’m inclined to think Clarence Thomas is right. Maybe we should just forget affirmative action.</p>
<p>Here’s the Harvard article. [“Roots</a>” and Race | Harvard Magazine](<a href=“http://harvardmagazine.com/2004/09/roots-and-race.html]"Roots”>http://harvardmagazine.com/2004/09/roots-and-race.html)</p>
<p>Trust me. I accompanied my D on every one of her ten college visits this year and made it a point to speak to black students on campus. I was disappointed but not shocked to discover more than half are really not African Americans but blacks from elsewhere. The whole point of Affirmative Action in this country is to help disadvantage minorities from THIS country. I don’t know why that distinction continues to elude you, Interesteddad.</p>
<p>Like the officials at Harvard told the black student doing the research “your research is dividing” people. It’s the dirtly little secret the elite schools don’t want people to know. The published “number” of blacks -the very group diversity and affirmative action are supposed to help- is deceiving.</p>
<p>Plainsman, </p>
<p>International students are students who are not U.S. Citizens or Permanent Residents of the United States regardless of race. A person who just received citizenship yesterday is still a citizen because no one will aks you how long have you been a citizen. I personally think that it is just as important to have blacks who are rich from the burbs, poor form the inner city, born in and outside of the U.S. as each person brings a different perspective to campus. To call the situation a “dirty little secret” is a bit overkill.</p>
<p>International students are counted as just that -international students regardless of race.</p>
<p>As I stated in my previous post, the common application now ask for the country of birth for both the student in the parent in order to help get a better look at the student in context of their environment.</p>
<p>from the Harvard Magazine Article Roots and Race.</p>
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<p>from the JBHE:</p>
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<p>Who says so? </p>
<p>This thread, by the way, is drifting off into the topic of the main FAQ and discussion thread. </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/568159-race-college-admissions-faq-discussion-2-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/568159-race-college-admissions-faq-discussion-2-a.html</a></p>
<p>From your article:</p>
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<p>Where does it say these are international students? If Harvard is counting them in the “Black”, “Hispanic”, or “Asian American” category, they are specifically NOT international students. Every student counted in those categories is either a US citizen or a US permanent resident with a green card.</p>
<p>You are making the charge that Harvard and other elite colleges are falsifying this information. Back it up.</p>
<p>BTW, correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t substantially all “Black, non-Hispanic” people in the United States of African or Carribean ancestory? I don’t think they are Swedish. So, if I understand your argument, you now want to impose an additional affirmative action requirement to provide even more preference to those whose ancestors immigrated before some cut-off date? </p>
<p>What date do you propose? Would you use the same date for Asian Americans, or a different immigration date as the cut-off? How about for Latino/a immigrants?</p>
<p>And, you seem to be suggesting a genetic test to disqualify bi racial students? Do you have a percentage bloodline in mind?</p>
<p>This whole thing is just completely out of hand. With all due respect to Sandra Day O’Connor, if affirmative action isn’t working out for URMs, then maybe we should just go ahead and end it early instead of waiting the full 25 years.</p>
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<p>That’s open for debate. Actually, the admission of large numbers of at-risk students in the early days of affirmative action was hardly an unqualified success. The graduation rates and overall satisfaction with the experiment were anything but successful, which is what led to the creation of a range of special programs and services so that affirmative action students could not only enroll, but actually succeed at elite colleges.</p>
<p>The hidden success story at elite colleges is the high level of academic qualifications and current success rates of African American students. It is a vastly more positive situation, even though the percentage numbers have barely budged over the last 30 years.</p>
<p>In fairness to Plainsman, I have seen some colleges playing games with ethnic reporting on their websites and marketing materials. They are providing ethnic breakdowns for the entire student body, including the international students. There is nothing wrong with this, it’s just not directly comparable to reporting of racial breakdowns for domestic students only. </p>
<p>I’ve never seen an example of a college erroneously reporting on “official” reports such as the Common Data Set or IPEDs forms.</p>
<p>Isn’t anyone going to acknowledge the irony of having this particular discussion only a few weeks after people were dancing in the streets and weeping openly as they celebrated the “historic” election of an African-American man as President – someone who apparently flunks Plainsman’s standards on two counts? He didn’t have multi-generational African-American roots in this country, and one of his parents wasn’t African- anything.</p>
<p>That’s what we are talking about here: whether Barack Obama is black enough. It seems a little silly.</p>
<p>Plainsman, since your daughter is biracial, which category should she be counted? Does she qualify for AA?</p>
<p>I suppose my opinion isn’t relevant but that rarely stops me.
For all intents and purposes- we are a nation of immigrants right?
So I think those students who are first gen- international students, do make a very big deal to the makeup of the campus.
From what I have read- colleges have both seats and money available for US citizens " of color" , however, if they cannot fill those seats- because of a lack of qualified applicants- why shouldn’t they continue to pursue their goal of a racially diverse student body, with the applicants * they do have*?</p>