<p>I am an OK student (3.3 avg, 1720 sat) and i was looking at lower UC's and fav Cal States. However my counselor and A.P. Teachers are telling me because I am African American I should aim alot higher to colleges that are in search for minorites such as Berkeley, Colby, Amherst etc... So i'm just wondering exactly how much confidence should i have in the advice given to me by my couselor. The rest of my transcript is in order (amnesty international, Key club, Public relations, Football, Bball, tennis, Philosophy club, National AP scholar with honors, Honor roll evrey quarter, Sat 2's-640, 660 and 570)</p>
<p>Your counselor and teachers are right that you may have options than than UCs and Cal States. As an underrepresented minority (URM), there are many fine colleges where you would be attractive. What states are you willing to live in? Can you stand a rural environment in a corn field for example? Are you low-income? First in your famlity to attend college? What are you interested in? What makes you different? What are you good at? Post some more info about what you are looking for and we can help you. </p>
<p>Your URM status doesn't help you at the UCs. (I assume that's what you meant by the title of your post??) Affirmative Action is alive and well elsewhere. Don't assume your URM status will get you in places where you are not qualified however. Your test scores are a low for Amherst for example. Plenty of other places would be happy to have you. PM me if you want to.</p>
<p>thanks for the info yea my scores are low for the higher level schools, no i am middle income and both parents graduated from college, i know colby wanted to fly me to thier school free of charge</p>
<p>I'm undecided as far as majors go but i'm interested in business and law</p>
<p>i will live in any state just no cornfields, i know NYU was interested in me</p>
<p>While yes there are many schools that will find you attractive also keep in mind that many URMS are also stepping it up so the pool of URM students applying to selective schools are becoming a more competitive pool many now bringing scores and grades equal to their counterparts. Keep in mind that you will be evaluated in a pool of other black applicants many having better grades and higher scores.</p>
<p>At selective schools the process is more holistic and you will be evaluated in context of the opportunities that you have given to you.</p>
<p>I think that your overall SAT I scores and grades are low for both NYU and Colby (yet we also do not know how your 1720 breaks out, if your CR + Math total out to 1200 you could be in the pocket). The only difference is that Colby has an extremely hard time attracting URMS.</p>
<p>For the class of 2008 there are 9 african americans, 13 hispanics, 4 native americans and 27 asians out of a class of 507 students. Would this environment be ok for you?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.colby.edu/ir/cds/cds2004.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.colby.edu/ir/cds/cds2004.pdf</a></p>
<p>I think that your gpa/SATI scores are a little low for NYU despite being a URM especially at Stern. As NYU is in one of the most diverse cities in the country, they are not at a loss to attract URMs because they attract a large number of URMs in through HEOP(this group of low income high achieving students get pretty close to a free ride). So should you be accepted to NYU expect to be a full paying student.</p>
<p>Whatever you decide, make sure that you have an array of reach match and safety schools.</p>
<p>Exactly what is the breakdown of your SAT I. That will matter.</p>
<p>If your v, m is 1200 or higher, that will raise your chances to some more competitive schools than you would have chances at if you were not a URM. However, since you seem to be solidly middle class with college educated parents, I doubt that you'd be in line for a place like Berkeley or Amherst.</p>
<p>The more competitive LACs and universities that are in isolated and/or low minority areas and lack URMS may consider you as you found with Colby, but it seems that those kind of schools do not appeal to you.</p>
<p>Some competitive colleges that are either in big cities or close to cities that lack URMs include the following that you might have chances of admission with: Boston College, Marquette, Davidson, Macalester, St. Olaf, Carlton, University of Wisconsin, Brandeis, University of Rochester, Case Western Reserve. You'd also have decent chances at places like George Washington, American, Syracuse, Fordham, some of which may offer you merit aid as might University of Wisconsin.</p>
<p>If money is a consideration, take a close look at colleges that offer merit aid and also are short on URMs as you'd probably get priority consideration. Some merit aid applications are due much earlier than admission applications, so check out the merit information ASAP.</p>
<p>While some colleges have majors called "prelaw," those tend to be collleges that are not highly rated and that have few graduates who go to law school. Prospective lawyers can major in anything. While journalism, political science and history are popular majors for students planning on attending law school, there is no required prelaw curriculum, and any major could help a person become a good lawyer since the undergraduate major could end up being the lawyer's specialty area.</p>
<p>yea its above 1200 slightly</p>
<p>theres not many Black URM's to begin with and very few are competitive i'm still in the top 10% of African Americans and that is sad</p>
<p>pusha...we have like the same stats. lol like no one on here is like that...but im applying to really competitive schools, which is like really bad since grades and SATs dont really match up. anyway, i think this was a really interesting post. thats all :-)</p>
<p>
[quote]
theres not many Black URM's to begin with and very few are competitive i'm still in the top 10% of African Americans and that is sad
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't quite understand this statement. Are you saying that you are in the top 10% of african americans over all or at your school?</p>
<p>Even though you are a URM, you need to remain cognizant of the fact that blacks are stepping up the game and you will still be evaluated in a competitve pool of applicants. Even in selective colleges where the number of african americans are at 8% (this still translates to having less than 100 african american students in the freshman class). The number of blacks applying to selective univerisites are up across the board and he is going to be evaluated in a pool of applicants, that have the following: </p>
<p>higher grades
better scores
students who are legacies
prep school students coming from feeder schools</p>
<p>students from nationally recognized high schools (TJ in Va, Stuyvesant, Bronx Science in NY and the rest). </p>
<p>This is not to take anything away from you, but you should also remain aware and keep it in the back of your mind that there are other canidates in the pool.</p>
<p>What does this mean overall for blacks; every one has to step up their game as being a URM is still going to be a hook, the pool in this population is going to be more competitive, whith more choices given to those that bring the overall "A" game to the table, as the pool is also participating in more rigerous courses offered by their school.</p>
<p>During the time that I have spent on the board, admissions is becoming more and more of a crap shoot (this includes URMs). As others have posted, have in toss his hat in the ring, but don't expect to be a shoo-in.</p>
<p>Over the next few years, the competition to get into college especially selective schools is going to be really stiff just because of the sheer number of applicanats (this includes URMs). </p>
<p>From the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education </p>
<p>*Yale Tops the Ivy League in Black Freshman Enrollments: *</p>
<p>JBHE has completed its annual collection of data on black first-year enrollments at the eight Ivy League colleges and universities. Blacks make up 9.3 percent of the first-year students at Yale University this fall. This is the highest rate in the Ivy League and the highest rate at Yale in the past decade. A year ago, only 6.7 percent of the entering class at Yale was black. </p>
<p>Harvard University also had a good year in attracting black students. There are 145 black freshmen at Harvard this fall. They make up 8.9 percent of the first-year class. </p>
<p>At the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Dartmouth College, blacks make up slightly more than 7 percent of the entering class. At Columbia University and Brown University, blacks are 6.8 percent of the freshman classes. </p>
<p>As has been the case for the past 13 years since JBHE began collecting statistics on black first-year enrollments in the Ivy League colleges, Cornell University has the smallest percentage of blacks in its entering class. This fall blacks are 4.7 percent of the freshman class at Cornell.</p>
<p>Black Applicants Surge at Harvard and Dartmouth:</p>
<p>Harvard reported this past week that it received a total of 22,717 applications for the class that will enter this fall. The number of applicants rose by 15 percent from last year's total. Black applications for the freshman class increased at an even higher rate. Harvard reports that black applicants increased 28.3 percent from last year. A university spokesperson stated that the huge jump in applicants may be due to the new Harvard Financial Aid Initiative, which essentially eliminates out-of-pocket tuition and room and board expenses for students who come from families with incomes of less than $40,000 per year. </p>
<p>In the year after the Cornel West controversy, black enrollments dipped slightly at Harvard. Now it appears that Harvard has weathered that storm as well as last summer's controversy surrounding the denial of tenure to African-American studies professor Marcyliena Morgan. This denial of tenure caused Professor Morgan and her husband, Lawrence Bobo, the esteemed sociologist and member of the National Academy of Sciences, to take tenured teaching positions at Stanford. </p>
<p>At Dartmouth College, overall applications surged to their highest level in history. The admissions office reports that applications from "students of color" represented 25 percent of the total pool. Applications from blacks were at their highest level in the past four years. Good evidence that a frigid winter climate does not necessarily deter black applications to a college that is otherwise seen as receptive to black students.</p>
<p>Are you taking the most rigerous courseload that your school offers and and are doing well in those courses. What makes you stand out? If you are looking to attend a highly selective college- it is pretty much now an expectation. You are going to be evaluted based on what your high school offers and as to whether or not you have taken advantage of the offering. (I would also suggest that you get a copy of your school's profile. That way you can see the ful llisting of what is offered, the average SAT scores for your school, what percentage of your senior class graduates in 4 years, what percentage attends 2 and 4 year schools and where do they attend).</p>
<p>*Black Participation in Particular Advanced Placement Courses: *</p>
<p>In 2004 more than 78,000 African-American students took Advanced Placement examinations. Blacks now make up 5 percent of all Advanced Placement test takers nationwide. For both blacks and whites, English literature, American history, English composition, and calculus were the most popular AP courses. Blacks were 6.9 percent of all students who took the AP test in French literature. This was the highest participation percentage for any of the 34 AP subject tests. Blacks were also at least 6 percent of all test takers in the subject areas of English literature, world history, macroeconomics, and French language. </p>
<p>The lowest level of black participation was on the Spanish literature test. Only 56 black students nationwide took the AP test in Spanish literature in 2004. They were only 0.6 percent of all test takers in this subject. Blacks were also less than 2 percent of all AP test takers in the subject areas of electrical and magnetic physics, Spanish language, computer science, and German. </p>
<p>Also keep in mind..</p>
<p>*Black Students Are Beginning to Seize the Early Admission Advantage *</p>
<p>At the nation's highest-ranked colleges and universities, the percentage of college-bound blacks who apply for early decision has always been far below the black percentage of the total applicant pool. The reason that college-bound blacks generally shun the binding commitments of the early admissions process is that their acceptance commitment cuts them off from the process of negotiating a favorable financial aid package from competing universities. </p>
<p>But JBHE statistics show that black students are now beginning to apply for early admission in much larger numbers.
In past years college-bound blacks have been much less likely than whites to seek early admission to the nation's highest-ranked colleges and universities. African Americans have avoided making the binding commitment to enroll if accepted because the rules of early decision eliminate their chances to "play the field" and consider a wide range of financial offers from competing universities. As a result, blacks have not been able to take advantage of the fact that early decision applicants generally achieve a much higher acceptance rate than applicants who choose to go the regular route. </p>
<p>For African Americans, the early decision process is assuming greater importance for the simple reason that early decision applications now make up a very large percentage of all admissions decisions. For example, this past winter Princeton University admitted 581 students under its binding early decision admissions program. This group is about one half of the freshman class that will enroll at Princeton this coming fall.</p>
<p>*Blacks Who Applied for Early Admission in 2004 *</p>
<p>JBHE has surveyed the nation's highest-ranked colleges and universities to determine how the controversial issue of early admissions actually affects black access to higher education, particularly admissions to our most selective institutions. JBHE asked each of the nation's 25 highest-ranked universities and the 25 highest-ranked liberal arts colleges for this year's early admissions data. Some of the nation's highest-ranked institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Amherst, Williams, Stanford, Dartmouth, Duke, and Columbia declined to participate in our survey. </p>
<p>We believe that the reason for this reluctance has to do with the fact that at most highly ranked colleges and universities there is only a very small trickle of black early decision applicants. Publication of this shortfall tends to hurt a school's reputation for its commitment to racial diversity. It is likely, although by no means certain, that universities and colleges missing from our statistics have a low percentage of black early applicants.</p>
<p>In addition, many top colleges are becoming increasingly aware that lots of their black admits are immigrant African/Caribbean or kids of such immigrants. They are trying to give more of a tip to African American nonimmigrants, whose families were hurt by the racism that led to affirmative action. In fact I would not be suprised if over hte next few years, the schools would start asking to further idenitfy (I believe that Amherst has already begun).</p>
<p>Top ten percent? Nationwide? I think you might be pushing it...</p>
<p>yea definitely not even close to top 10%.... ok so from what im hearing my 3.3 with a decent difficulty(3 ap's 2 honors) of schedule and 1950 sat, 30 act and decent EC's (varsity athlete, state deca finalist, national achievement semi's) gives me a chance at colleges like bc and wisconsin-madison.... im really not buying that, i dont think being a urm helps that much. I mean thats just insane</p>
<p>oh and if anyone wanted to know my test score breakdown its... 700v 640m 610w.. act is 27m 28e 30r 33s</p>
<p>Black People make up roughly 12.5% of the US population and with the exception of a few schools the Black Population is less than 4%. Do you see something wrong with that, where other URM's (Latin's Asians are growing at much faster rates) </p>
<p>Berkeley was telling me about the struggle for pulling African Americans Because ^^^^^THIS IS FOR SYBBIE^^^^^ those with great grades and even decent grades go to the IVY LEAGUE leaving other great and competitive schools to pull from an even smaller group of African Americans. Berkeley reacieved lots of apps from Blacks but those that could get in on grades and no URM hook don't want to go to Berkeley when they got accepted to Princeton, Stanford, Yale, Harvard etc.. Do you understand what i'm trying to say. In effect all African americans benifit because now I can apply to Berkeley and they know the 4.0's they accepted aren't going to come so they accept me because they know i don't have that Harcard option.
-->yes i know UC don't have affirmative action thats why this conversation was particularly interesting</p>
<p>"I don't quite understand this statement. Are you saying that you are in the top 10% of african americans over all or at your school?"</p>
<p>Yea top 10% of African Americans Yes nationwide and my school. Which is a feeder school.(sad aint it, but you have to remember that the majority of black people don't atend your school (generalization) most live in areas like new Orlean, LA, NY, in bad public school system, i only know mine the LA, where SAT's are a joke and so is school in general. Believe it, even though schools are accepting more and getting more applications does not mean that grades have risen over the last 3 years its more of an awareness among the black community that they can attend top schools also. I have friends with low stats acceptred to schools that they should have never even thought of. But this was all good info.</p>
<p>I'm not getting my hopes up to high Sybbie which seems to be your focus, iknow my grades aren't great but all i'm saying is i have options.</p>
<p>ummm... yea i dont think you have any chance at berkeley, stanford, amherst or any of the sort. Im an african-american urm with stats higher than yours and i know a lot of other african-american urm's with stats better than mine. I think your giving a little too much weight to this urm thing. URM's are getting a lot more competitive.</p>
<p>and your soooo not even close to top 10% nationwide</p>
<p>didn't say i would get in and yea i am and who are you</p>
<p>yes you have a higher SAT but our EC's are the same and i took 8 Ap's and 2 Honors a MUCH more rigorous schedule varsity athlete in 3 sports in a Feeder College school with pull among top colleges and National Honor Student </p>
<p>i think you need to go back and read my first post</p>
<p>whoa, whoa lets not have a stat off or anything i was just trying to prove the point that urm's are more competitive than you think, i also go to a top school, in addition to my school schedule ive taken college courses and im a first gen college student. I really dont think being varsity in 3 sports means anything unless your recruited im varsity in both b-ball and track but im only being recruited in track (not for any of the top programs though :( ). And i really dont care what you say, your not in the top 10% nationwide. Also if when you say your a national honor student you mean that you made national honor roll, dont even put that on the app.</p>
<p>no not honor roll thats hilarious (and i thought u didn't want a stat off but obviously you do) National AP Scholar Award with Honors is an award given to students who maintain a 3.5 average on 4 or more AP tests second highest honor in AP's. And i am being recruited so i won't tell you which sport and so you see why i REALLY don't care what you say</p>
<p>if you read my post i provided that there is a number of black people who put both are stats to shame with 4.0's and are going to top schools so before you post read, please</p>
<p>lol... ok thats cool... but anyway good luck at your schools</p>