<p>First off, my goal school is the UC system(Berkeley being the dream school), along with applications to CalTech and Stanford.</p>
<p>I know that affirmative action is illegal in California, but after reading some of the applications from this website, it seems that caucasians with killer stats don't seem to do as well as others.</p>
<p>Anyway, the real question is this: I'm Russian and learned Russian as my first and primary language, so on applications such as UC's there are boxes where I can denote this, but caucasian is still caucasian. So do you think that even though I'm white, I stand a better chance due to my original nationality?</p>
<p>By the way, I am a U.S. citizen if that makes a difference.</p>
<p>The UCs don't care about your race. If you have some compelling essay you could write regarding your Russian influence or your US citizenship transition, then it might be helpful but I wouldn't rely on it - the main area to focus is on HS GPA, class rank, SAT scores, ECs.</p>
<p>My son is Russian and the only kick it might possibly give him, as far as I understand is that his 800 on SAT Crit will look a little bit more impressive (Russian is his first language). Other than that, I am sure not.</p>
<p>"Berkeley OOS is about as hard as HYP. Good luck!"</p>
<p>let's not get out of hand. Berkeley OOS is not as hard as those. I don't even see how you can even list them with a straight face. Have you even visited the Harvard 2010 reject topic in the Harvard forum? Go check out some of the HYP "rejects" for this year before you type such things.</p>
<p>I don't think you can get a race boost. But the citizenship process and culture transition might make good essay topics; include somewhere you have native fluency in Russian, it's incredible.</p>
<p>Now, I have the simular question - what about schools in the midwest like Wisconsin, Michigan, and UIUC? I'm a Ukrainian, permament resident in the US but not a citizen yet, been here for 1.5 years. Does race give you any kind of a boost in those schools?
PS Миха, здарова! :D</p>