<p>How do colleges define this? Is the granddaughter of Cuban immigrants, daughter of 2 professional college graduates, never spoke Spanish in the home a URM, for example? Is URM really a surrogate for socioeconomic class?</p>
<p>URM and $$$$$ no connection</p>
<p>URM and skin yes </p>
<p>Benefits that should have been - poor but intelligent URM kids from downtown Chicago, NY City, Philly, Washington DC gets no break for being a URM for whom the real URM policies should have been designated. These people need real help in whatsoever way.</p>
<p>Problem Area - rich URM or recent immigrants from Africa are major beneficiary of URM policy. However they rarely suffers any disadvantages as faced by their counterparts in downtowns.</p>
<p>Socioeconomic status does not matter. In order to qualify you just have to be an under represented minority, you can be rich or poor. What I have observed in this process it is even more advantageous to be a rich under represented minority which probably isn't fair.</p>
<p>It depends on the college.
URMs often mean people who are African American (and who are not African immigrants or Caribbean immigrants, though some colleges do put such immigrants in the URM category), Native American and Hispanics (meaning not Portuguese, Spanish) with at least one parent who meets that definition -- whether or not the parent speaks Spanish.</p>
<p>When it comes to Hispanics, there are some colleges that are particularly interested in Mexican Americans because about 60% of the US Hispanic population is Mexican. The preference, too, would be for low income, first generation Mexican Americans from a Spanish-speaking household.</p>
<p>My thoughts are that when it comes to the most select colleges -- HPYS, the top LACs, they will be more picky about which types of URMs get any preference. That's because such colleges get floods of outstanding applicants, including from URMs in the most highly desired categories. Due to the large numbers of Hispanics in Fla., California and Texas, I also imagine that colleges in these states would be picky about who gets any tips related to being Hispanic.</p>
<p>When it comes to other colleges that get fewer applicants from URMs, they may use broader definitions of what URM is. Since relatively few URMs are interested in going to some of the Midwest's top colleges -- Macalester, Carleton, Grinnell -- I would imagine that such colleges are interested in attracting any kind of URMs that could meet their admission standards.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt, Davidson, and Wake Forest I believe also have similar problems attracting URMs, so may be other places using looser definitions.</p>
<p>Any amount of heritage? 1/8th, 1/4,?? Surely colleges must have some sort of clue, or is the URM merely window dressing to increase (pseudo) diversity?</p>
<p>"Problem - poor but intelligent kids from downtown Chicago, NY City, Philly, Washington DC gets no break for being a URM for whom the real URM policies should have been designated. These people need real help in whatsoever way."</p>
<p>This is not true at all. Those type of students get major tips -- if they meet elite colleges minimum admission criteria and have demonstrated that they have the ability to thrive at such a college.</p>
<p>This doesn't mean that they would be expected to have the kind of scores, ECs that a competitive student would be expected to have who came from a very privileged background.</p>
<p>A poor student of any race who achieves an excellent gpa in a terrible school system and has SATs as low as 1800 (on the new SAT), and has had major family responsibilities such as caring for younger sibs or working a fastfood job to help support their family would be highly desired over a URM with professional parents, lots of APs, decent SATs, a nice gpa, an excellent school system, and nice ECs.</p>
<p>The top colleges have now a lot of concern about their lack of economic diversity and are very interested in attracting capable low income students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Their problem is that few such students apply to top colleges due to inadequate guidance counselors and lack of information about college applications and the excellent financial aid that they may qualify for. </p>
<p>Many low income, first generation college students also prefer to go to colleges that are close to home. They are unlikely to have had much experience going away from home. College itself is a big step for them, and going far from home adds to their concern about the experience.</p>
<p>Northstarmom:</p>
<p>How many rich URM kids put race on their college application to get advantages - majority. The kid who deserves it they will get in. I think adcom need to give break to kids from poor places. Do not tell me that intelligent kids are not present in the downtown. Unfortunately lot of well to do families leave downtown in order to do what is good for their families. Thus creating more problems for urban schools. </p>
<p>If this is not the case then I would say college needs to take this column out and forget whatever race one comes from. Why are Adcom are trying to be God and trying to change the word. </p>
<p>That is the reason Asian Kids are told not to put their identity. However Asian kids last name does not help their cause.</p>
<p>My daughter attends school with wealthy URM's who have easy access to ivy league schools. They can attend with SATS that are as much as 300 points lower than equivalent anglo or asian girls.In one case the difference was 550 points. The children in our city that do not have access to private schools do not have the access to the ivy league schools. I am starting to see asians being penalized by this process. I have always been pro-affirmative action but this process is changing my mind. I actually know of a case in my neighborhood involving Stanford. An uppermiddle class hispanic boy had a 1180 SAT with a C average was admitted. An Asian girl who was accomplished in music with a 1580 SAT and A+ average was turned down. Also the boy was quite a bit better off financially and he doesn't play a sport at Stanford.</p>
<p>Soory asian are not being penalized. The people who are penalized are the poor URM which will provide a real diverity to IVY kids. NO need to jack up asian kids more. I think we need more poor URM from downtown to give a boost. Rich URM should be treated like any other asian kids. </p>
<p>This is not about asian kids. This is about making a level playing field for poor URM kids who have no break. They need help.</p>
<p>I am very much in favor of POSSE and the programs that work with innercity youth and offer agreat opportunity</p>
<p>parentny - what is this "downtown" thing? In Philly, downtown is the most expensive place to live. It's confusing to start to group people based on assumptions about where they live. When people in Philly want to cut costs, they move to the burbs.....or other parts of Phila. </p>
<p>I think adcoms agree with you and are already practicing this. Poor URMs get a tip. Wealthy URMs do not. Adcoms can read the app and know what they're looking at. They're not stupid or naive. </p>
<p>Why don't you believe people who know how this works when they tell you? Why do you continue to propagate lies and cause confusion. </p>
<p>California, are you a counselor who has access to the application files of these kids? Or, are you a parent who is passing on what kids have told you? I question the data. My experiences have been quite different.</p>
<p>Parentny, how many poor URMs were denied admission to highly selective schools in 20o4 or 2005? How many wealthy URMs were given admission? What is the average SAT and GPA for each group? </p>
<p>If you can't answer those questions, you have no basis for your argument.</p>
<p>I am not going by rumor. I have access to the statistics in my school and a few others in my area. I have documentation on the Stanford case which I spoke of earlier.Also I am not saying that there are some good outcomes in this process,but I think there are some very unfair things happening also.</p>
<p>"My daughter attends school with wealthy URM's who have easy access to ivy league schools. They can attend with SATS that are as much as 300 points lower than equivalent anglo or asian girls."</p>
<p>It sounds like you are basing your conclusions on anecdotal data.</p>
<p>Just how would your D know the income levels and SAT scores of URMs at her school? I doubt that this info is available from any reputable source. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, I actually am in a position to know the scores and other data of URMs as well as non URM students applying to my Ivy. I have seen no indication that it's easy for URMs to get accepted. I have seen URMs rejected or waitlisted with national achievements including National Merit Commended, national academic awards,National Merit semi finalist.</p>
<p>And I have seen plenty of URMs rejected with less stellar achievements.</p>
<p>I also have seen whites and Asians in both of the above categories rejected. The competition to get into the top colleges now is horrendous. Stellar applicants of all races will be rejected. It's a mistake to think that subpar URMs have an easy in.</p>
<p>I am not saying URM's always have an easier in. I don't care if poor or even middle URMs have an easier in.I am saying there is a considerable amount of unfairness in the current system.I don't think children of top corporate executives and doctors who have learned how to play the sytem deserve preferential treatment over middle class asian and anglo children. I realize my statement might not be 100 percent politically correct but I have changed my mind this past year.</p>
<p>Cali-</p>
<p>Since you access to stats for several schools, is it your conclusion that the wealthy URMs with sub 1200 scores are routinley admitted to HYPSM? </p>
<p>If so, it must be a California thing. I can tell you that it is NOT happening here. What I see (and I happen to know many high-achieving, welathy URMs) is in line with what NSM outlines. The wealthy URMs I know are probably compared to whites an Asians, because they are rejected like everyone else....even with 1400+ scores. Conversely, you can go back and read the threads from the timeframe of admission and see poor whites from unpopular parts of the country getting into Ivies with sub 1200s. </p>
<p>I'm sure we can ALL find one or two situations to support any position....and I can name a black kid with close to a 1600 who was recently rejected from Harvard. Both parents are doctors, private schools, extensive travel, blah blah blah. And, I can also go back and find the name of the poor white kid who was excited about his admission to Harvard with a sub 1200. Yet, I would never go around saying....."Harvard admites poor whites over blacks!" I would need lots of data to back up something like that....not very limited anecdotal evidence.</p>
<p>Although at first I thought I was asking for a "real" definition of URM, I think what I was really looking for was reassurance that colleges are truly committed to diversity (of all types, economic, ethnic, political). Perhaps for some colleges, admitting economically or educationally privileged URM's is a means of feigning diversity to improve rankings. It seems that others (perhaps top tier who truly can take the brightest and the best without losing true diversity) strive to find bright disadvantaged students and are not hood-winked by the hypothetical student I described below. I certainly did not mean for this question to be a lightning rod for "smart white kid gets beat out by not as smart [put your ethnic group here] kid" discussions.</p>
<p>For everyone, let's be clear that there is a difference between admitting URMs and admitting URMs with sub-par scores. URMs are probably desirable, wealthy or not. I would think that even wealthy URMs would provide diversity.....though, I know that's not a polular opinion. There seems to be a notion that unless a URM is poor, they offer no diversity of experience. I disagree. </p>
<p>Unique situations dealt with by privileged URMs...</p>
<p>-Racism (wealthy URMs have much more conatct with whites - and their experience with racism can be much more broad than poor URMs who are rarely exposed to whites). </p>
<p>-The Only One (wealthy URMs are often "the only one" (black, mexican, PR) in their class at school. Nobody else looks like them, likes their music, understands their issues. They often have to exist in two worlds.....a black social world outside of school, and a white world in school) </p>
<p>-Intraracial discrimination (privileged URMs are discriminated against by poor URMs (I call this the "crabs in a barrel" syndrome). They are beaten up for "talking white" or wearing a school uniform or having things that poorer URMs don't. </p>
<p>This is just to name a few. So, next time you look at a privileged URM and think "she's just like any privileged white person", think again. I wish people who think privileged URMs are just like whites would have gone to college and roomed with one....as a little exposure can go a long way to understanding.</p>
<p>I wish that white and Asian people who think privileged African Americans are just like any privileged white person could spend just one day as a black person. I am sure that they'd quickly see the differences between their normal experiences and the experiences of their socioeconomic peers who are black.</p>
<p>The nonfiction book "Black Like Me" -- in which a white person changed his skin color so as to appear to be black and thus learned how different are the lives of blacks and whites in this country -- could be written again. I think that many people (including many wealthy and middle class young African Americans who don't recognize the racism they encounter) would be surprised to find out how much one's race still affects one's life in this country.</p>
<p>Over the past few years, I have spent several months in France and have been amazed at how differently I was treated there.</p>
<p>In Paris, sales clerks did not follow me around as if I was there to steal.</p>
<p>I was not invisible as I stood at a counter and attempted to ask a question.</p>
<p>When I met French people, I was not assumed to be uneducated and ignorant about things like fine art and classical music.</p>
<p>Sales clerks did not immediately tell me the price of articles that I asked to look at. (It is routine for sales clerks in the US to -- when asked by a black person to take out a camera, piece of jewelry, etc. from a locked case -- to say the cost of the item instead of taking it out.)</p>
<p>Cabs didn't slam their doors and speed off when I attempted to get one.</p>
<p>One last thing that actually is a bit funny in an ironic way: I was actually treated better than were white Americans. In a reversal of what often happens in the US, the French seem to regard black Americans as sophisticated, talented, interesting while regarding white Americans as boorish.</p>
<p>You make an excellent case for different kinds of diversity, but it doesn't help a child stung(not my own) by the admissions process. There are so many of what they call "special cases" and by the way URMS are certainly not the only "special cases" that is makes the whole process increasing difficult.</p>
<p>Cali-</p>
<p>Thanks. And, it's interesting that everytime I make these points, it always comes down to someone's kid being "stung" in the admissions process. I recall my last engagement in this very discussion and being asked "what would you say to the white kid who is in tears....blah, blah".....and I think I responded by saying that I would say the same thing that I said to my son's black, privileged GF who was rejected from an Ivy (with competitive scores and GPA, from a feeder school)....</p>
<p>I feel badly for ALL kids who are rejected from their top choice schools after working hard to get the point of being worthy of a spot. But, making an automatic leap to the "some undeserving URM took my spot" rant is inappropriate and troubling. </p>
<p>I don't take sides on race. I see it both ways....and I really, really don't believe wealthy URMs are getting the big tip. I also don't think many poor URMs are applying. THAT is the problem I would like to fix. Limiting privileged URMs with hopes of that allowing more poor URMs to get in is someone's backhanded way of getting another group in....and is not about URMs at all. (not directed at you Cali, as this was not your proposed solution).</p>