Ancestry.com and College Admissions

Today I ran into a family who had their kid check the “African American” box on college applications. This family does not look African American; they have darker blondish hair and Europeanish features. The kid does not identify as an African American as far as I know. They are quite advantaged economically as well.

However, they did an Ancestry.com test that revealed some percentage of African American in one of the parent’s blood. They were positively giddy about this.

Is this a thing now? Has anyone ever heard of this? I can’t believe somebody would do this, but I suppose if called on it, they could say they answered the question in good faith based on the ancestry.com test. I don’t know them well enough to know anything about the grandparents, etc. I don’t know what percentage was revealed. Honestly, the encounter struck me speechless. Clearly, they are not hiding what they are doing since they told me and I barely know them. I just asked how the kid’s college application season was going, and off they went…

I know it’s none of my businesses, yet I wish I could have thought of some good response. What would you have said?

Personally, I don’t think they will see a gain from this. They sound like they already have a smart kid who will get accepted to colleges. They have good social and economic advantages.

But if I were you…I would just smile and nod.

I think they will be disappointed to find it doesn’t help their admissions.

I think it’s a dishonest thing to do but I agree with @twoinanddone that it likely will have litte effect on admissions. The fact that my nephew is mixed race and graduated from high school in one of the most segregated cities in the United States was not a magical “diversity” card for college admissions.

Actually…they really won’t ever KNOW if this affects admissions…or not. It’s not like the schools write back and say “you got accepted because of your URM status”. They don’t.

I don’t know if it will help admissions, but I remain troubled by the idea that people might use these tests for this purpose. I’m not sure it’s actually dishonest…I think they honestly believe their response to the race question was accurate. But it is definitely misleading and counter to the purpose of the question; i.e., to create a diverse entering class. This family will not offer diversity to a college in any ethnic sense.

It’s dishonest but i doubt it’s any kind of widespread thing.

Go back far enough and we’re all African.

Do we know what percentage African American we’re talking about? Still seems shady, I don’t know. I list my kids as Hispanic, the fact that they “look white” isn’t really a factor. My mother is an immigrant from a Latin American country, that’s my culture, language, etc… and so it is for my kids as well. Yes, they have a heavy percentage of Spanish and native, and yet they “look white”… when a form asks if they are Hispanic, yes, they are.

If I could believe that this family actually identified, even slightly, with being African American, it would not trouble me even if they don’t “look the part.” But they made this discovery via some dot com test. So, I have to conclude that they were not living with this knowledge for very long, and certainly they would not lend any African American diversity to a college.

An applicant can fill in the Hispanic bubble without having to provide proof. These people are a little bit black. So what if they just found out and haven’t previously identified as such? You may say that AA wasn’t meant for such people, but a lot of other people who are already “advantaged” in the game are benefitting as well, so why not these folks?

But…are they a little bit black? Is ancestry.com a reliable source of one’s true ethnicity?

They were spot on with my son’s test. Exactly what we thought re: his racial breakdown.

It’s DNA. So reliable, but it’s not a full DNA test, so could be flawed.

According to http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/12/genetic-study-reveals-surprising-ancestry-many-americans , “At least 3.5% of European Americans carry African ancestry”. This is more common in the south; for example, 12% in South Carolina and Louisiana.

I think they knew they were being dishonest. Seriously. He didn’t grow up looking like or identifying as an African American.

And no, those DNA tests are merely for fun, there could be some truth to them but they are certainly not scientifically proven or reliable. You could get different results from different companies.

I know a very blonde family who can literally trace their ancestry back to the Mayflower. And get this – they did the ancestry.com test recently, hoping that there would somehow be even a teeny bit of Native American DNA, since their kids are both heading to college in the next couple of years, and… “Well, can you just imagine the scholarships for Native American descendants?” Oh. my. goodness. This one really left me speechless!

^^And they are so wrong. Being NA is one category they actually make you prove. The tribes want you to register, and they want a lot of proof.

My daughter, who is 100% Han Chinese, questioned whether she should even check the box. I told her the choice was hers. It didn’t help her in any way, but it might help the school with its reporting. Racially, she’s Chinese. Ethnically, she’s American.

A person apparently can claim tribal membership to a native American Indian tribe having only 1/16th of that bloodline – meaning they need to have just one full-blooded great-great-grandparent from that tribe.

Various Jim Crow laws during post-Civil War reconstruction went as far as establishing the “One-Drop” rule, stating that having even one drop of African blood meant that person was deemed to be black/African-American. That one-drop rule was adopted into law by Tennessee, Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina and Oklahoma between the 1910s and 1931. Various other states deemed someone to be black if they had either 1/8th or 1/16th African-American descent.

So who am I to say that someone, having any genetic descent from a black individual, might wrongfully claim to be black or an under-represented minority? These days, genetic males might identify themselves as female and vice-versa.

Three of my five kids might be able to 'pass", as they used to say. Should they benefit from AA? Presumably, because of this fact, they have suffered less than others who can’t pass. Should that matter?

The ancestry tests are “accurate” to a certain extent. They had my sister as nearly double the amount of Ashkenazi that I am despite the fact that we have the same Ashkenazi dad. They also had me with a tiny amount of east Asian but neither of my parents show that.

This is not really true. The standards are set by each tribe and you can really only “claim” Native ancestry for certain things (like tuition remission) if you are a recognized member of a recognized tribe (at least in my state- others have different standards.)

Here is some differing laws by states: https://nativeyouth2college.org/resources/u-s-colleges-and-universities-offering-in-state-tuition-and-tuition-waivers-for-native-american-students/

Sure, you could self-identify on forms but you could theoretically do that if you’re 1/100th of anything.