<p>Would being both Asian and African American help or hurt my app?</p>
<p>I know Asian is an ORM and African American is an URM...so im not sure.</p>
<p>From seeing two high school classmates who identified as both…it certainly helped them in their cases. </p>
<p>One friend who’s Asian/African-American from a working-class family ended up getting admitted to MIT and Columbia Engineering…though he also had strong stats which placed him well above the 75th percentiles of both schools. Ended up attending Columbia because they gave him better FA/scholarship money. </p>
<p>Another classmate whose family are well-off East Indians who initially migrated to East Africa before coming to the US identified himself as “African-American” on his college apps and got admitted to HYPSM. Let’s just say that while he may have a plausibly legitimate grounds, many of his classmates who were a mix of URMs and non-URMs had some serious issues with what he did. </p>
<p>One great thing about college apps is that unless rules have drastically changed since I or my younger friends have applied, you do not need to list all your racial/ethnic backgrounds if you don’t feel like it as it is based on self-identity. In your case, you can identify as Asian, African-American, or both. It’s all up to you.</p>
<p>Many colleges, especially highly selective institutions, now look at bi- or multi-racial students as ‘underrepresented minority’ or not. Those who are ‘not’ are (to be blunt) half Asian, half white. If a student is bi- or multi-racial and one of the races is underrepresented, colleges can/should consider that student underrepresented.</p>