No, you do not have to have the tribal enrollment “card.” But you have to have some connection. Trust me on this one.
Where it’s important to be able to show enrollment is in states heavy with NA populations, generally the publics, generally parts of the midwest. The rest depends on school policy.
OP, you are complicating all this. Don’t spin off course.
Who cares what Obama checked int he last Census. What does it prove on this thread.
Re: #60
Also, if the parents are divorced, many of the colleges with good financial aid use both parents’ financial information. If one parent is not cooperative with financial aid forms, or has significant income or assets but will not pay, then need-based financial aid is more likely to be insufficient even at colleges with good financial aid.
Some students or parents make the mistake of running net price calculators of such colleges using only one parent’s income and assets. This commonly leads to unrealistically optimistic estimates. Including both parents’ income and assets should be closer, although many colleges’ net price calculators are less accurate for divorced parent situations.
@MurphyBrown thank you for the clarification above, that’s helpful. My ex is quite ‘black’ in appearance, according to an American view of what black looks like - my son is more mixed looking. His father is alive as far as I know but hasn’t been seen (by us) in 11 years nor has he sent any support, so we will need that waiver.
My father’s family was very much into genealogies and family trees. My great grandmother had a book for her family tree going back 1000 years, so I think I inherited that sort of interest from them. My ex’s family actually had no interest in their heritage - or perhaps I should say ancestry / family tree, so they knew nothing. I sat his grandmother down one day and with my ex translating where she couldn’t explain (her English was limited) I got their story as far back as she knew it. Luckily she knew his other side of the family well too - I guess their mixed community wasn’t that big back in the day, and she told me some about them too. I also went digging through some old file of birth and marriage certificates.
Do people still use the word “mongoloid”?
Due to the financial aid non-custodial parent issue, your son’s safety schools need to be affordable on any of the following:
For schools like Ivy League schools that need non-custodial parent information (and may not necessarily grant waivers easily), he would need both admission (a reach by itself for everyone) and either the waiver or cooperation (both forms and money) from his father (which could be another reach).
@PrimeMeridian , yes, PC not withstanding.
OP said her own income is too high to get financial aid, that may not be correct, but if it is, the dad is a non-issue, the family won’t get need-based aid anyway.
The OP said that her income is not low enough to get federal financial aid. There is quite a difference between $55,000 or so ($0 Pell grant) and $250,000 or so ($0 financial aid grants from Harvard and similar schools).
Another consideration here is whether he would be considered an international student. I hope not, since that would have a very negative impact on FA opportunities.
Well ucb, I raised the issue so she could find out. I also suggest starting a new thread in the financial aid forum for that.
I should say my own income ‘looks’ on a US tax form like it is higher than it actually is. I work in a foreign country and the way my employer handles benefits, things that would never be considered taxed income the way they are handled in the US, are handled and distributed here in a way that the US government counts them as if they are salary and wages - like the pension I should get when I retire from this place and my health coverage… I doubt they will listen if I try to explain it.
The Feds may not, but the FA department at a top LAC or Ivy-level university will, including on appeal of an initial award.
I think it should be clarified in this discussion that some people who are multi-racial “identify as” as a particular race, and that it’s entirely legitimate for such persons to check only that box. (Indeed, virtually all African-Americans are actually multi-racial.) I think OP’s son could check black/African/African-American if he wishes, but it sounds like it is perhaps not the most accurate description. He really is more of a “more than one” or “other.”
Also, it is my strong suspicion that any URM “hook” will be obtained as long as black/African/African-American is one of the boxes checked–that it doesn’t have to be the only box. Colleges will still enter such a student as a URM for statistical purposes.
So I would suggest checking all three boxes, since it’s closest to the truth, and probably doesn’t impose any cost in terms of the URM hook.
He is a US citizen, from birth, not a foreign / international student. The Ivy league schools are more reasonable than the state and other schools are in what they consider an income that can actually afford to pay full tuition every year. It looks like many of them have more a graded aid system where they reduce the amount they give in small increments as the income goes up. Other schools seem to have more of a hard cut off and above you get get nothing and below it you get everything…
I agree that it’s very likely. But why take any chance?
Also, after passing the initial screening and each application is pitched by its reader to other members of the admission committee, being AA versus Mixed could make the difference especially if they don’t have enough African Americans to report that year. As I understand, colleges often have difficulties to admit enough qualified applicants for that pool.
After all, colleges don’t report % of URM to the public. They report % of African Americans and Mixed (URM and none-URM mixes combined) separately to the public.
UmmSalman, I agree that he’s more likely to get some need-based FA from some of the Ivies than at other Us. But do not overlook some of the very generous elite LACs, such as Pomona and Bowdoin. Definitely worth running their NPCs, probably with the questionable income items both in and out.
Other schools to consider are those with big automatic awards for stats, such as the oft-mentioned Alabama, and schools with potentially large awards (in the $30K range, IIRC) for top OOS students, such as Pitt’s Honors College. The University of Rochester has its Renaissance Scholar program, which IIRC is in the neighborhood of $30K per year. Several kids I know were offered 4-year merit scholarships there in the range of $7-10K per year. Both Pitt and Rochester are reasonable safeties for a kid who is a strong Ivy candidate. At Pitt, applying early is key, and Rochester wants to see evidence of interest.
“Also, after passing the initial screening and each application is pitched by its reader to other members of the admission committee, being AA versus Mixed could make the difference especially if they don’t have enough African Americans to report that year”
Your continued misguided belief that AA-only is some kind of magic switch flipper that turns no to yes is really not fair to the OP who is seeking info, not conspiracy theories.
My speculation was based on countless reports and leaked information regarding how applications are reviewed by highly competitive universities. Majority of them were obtained on this site and I deemed them to be trustworthy enough to consider, even though I won’t blindly trust them.
You are giving the impression of refuting my argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not advanced by me. It is a common form of informal fallacy called straw man. You also oversimplified my argument and then attached the oversimplified version, in addition to changing it and attacking the changed version.
Normally I prefer to abstain from pointing out informal fallacies and give my opponents benefit of doubt, as sometimes the infomercial fallacies still end up making meaningful points, and I don’t like making fallacy fallacy myself.
But during the short time that I have joined this forum you have been so repeatedly making accusations to me and others with casually using various informal fallacies that I have decided to reevaluated my preference while answering to your arguments.
Re #77
Have you run the net price calculators on the various schools of interest?
For Ivy League schools and others using noncustodial parent information, be sure to include your ex’s income and assets, since waivers are unlikely. Accuracy does tend to be lower in divorce situations, though it would be worse if you only include your own information for schools that also want his.