<p>I recently saw on another thread that colleges compare you to your race not the applicants as a whole (when dealing with URM). They said that they pick the best out of that particular race, even if they don't necessarily bump heads with the rest of the applicants. I was wondering if this is even slightly true? Seems almost too good to be true. I think it's valid a bit but not to a great extent. Thanks! :)</p>
<p>ya its true. At Berkeley asians are accepted 29% of the time, Whites 33%, Hispanics 40%, Native Americans 50%. </p>
<p>btw the URMs I met got crazy financial aid packages.</p>
<p>@bomerr you don’t know what you are talking about. At Berkeley “Race, ethnicity, gender, and religion are excluded from the criteria.” <a href=“Selection Process - Office of Undergraduate Admissions”>http://admissions.berkeley.edu/selectsstudents</a></p>
<p>That is because CA public colleges are not allowed by law to consider it. <a href=“History Of Admissions At Uc Berkeley | Secrets Of The Sat | FRONTLINE | PBS”>http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/etc/ucb.html</a></p>
<p>Affirmative Action has been banned in several states including California. Schools may still use some way to increase the diversity in those states but cannot use race as an admission criteria.</p>
<p>@Jessdilla2015 I suspect you’re referring to my post. There, I suggested people familiarize themselves with the concept of “category admissions” as outlined in the last third of this essay:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.reed.edu/apply/news_and_articles/admission_messages.html”>http://www.reed.edu/apply/news_and_articles/admission_messages.html</a></p>
<p>This applies to private colleges and publics that can execute affirmative action-type policies.</p>
<p>You aren’t necessarily compared to your race. But colleges typically try to factor in race and the impact it has had on your opportunities and life experiences. But it is important to realize schools look at everything. So if you aren’t a minority, they will still look at what you had access to, family income, etc.</p>
<p>@donnaleighg</p>
<p>I lost the link but that is OFFICIAL data posted by Berkeley. Hispanics/Blacks/Native American’s get accepted at a higher rate than Whites or Asians. </p>
<p>bomerr: if that’s the case, then the issue is UBC gets an inordinate number of apps from whites and asians. Also, their outreach/recruiting/public relations to URMs might be lacking – thus they get fewer applicants from that sub-group from which to choose – which translates to higher admit rate.</p>
<p>Enough of this trolling. If you are worrying about your admission chances based on RACE alone, then you are setting yourself up for disappointment.
Get out there, study hard for your test, volunteer, get a partime job, lear some new skills etc, and let nature do the rest.</p>
<p>Sometimes I feel this gets more complicated than it needs to be. If you desire admissions to a school read their common data set and see if your test scores are within their 25/75 range. If it is, you have probably crossed the first hurdle of the process. However once that happens the importance of your test scores are going to take a back seat to your academic rigor. Have you attempted and succeeded in the best courses your school has to offer, whether that’s IB, AP or honors and then as most of the Ivy League deans of admission will tell you,your teacher recs are next. If you are an URM your chances are a little bit better if you’ve crossed that first hurdle because the school may not have as many students of your ethnicity in the school or applying to the school so your chances may be slightly better due to the numbers and the schools desire to have a diverse student body. Example the overall admit rate at Cornell is around 15 %. For African Americans it’s around 20 % which is going to be higher than an Asian kid ORM because there are more Asian kids at the school and in the admission process than exist percentage wise nationally. The admission rate per Asians may be around 10 %. You are not just competing amongst your ethnicity which is why the numbers do shift though normally not dramatically when it comes to enrollment. But there is as mentioned earlier a categorization and on many levels. Whether it’s geographic, athletic, ethnic, legacy driven etc… Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that you have some better chance because of your ethnicity. The process is holistic and you’re going to have to hit a home run on all parts of the process based on what that school is looking for in that class. That’s why some kids get admitted
who are lower than the 25/75 and some are denied who are higher. </p>