Definition of URM?

Parents Forum
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<p>The most obvious indication of low-income status shows up in the admissions office with the application. And it can't be missed. The application fee waiver form from the College Board. It is usually brightly (as in NEON) colored and says you are qualified based on being dirt poor that you qualify to be exempt from paying their app fee.</p>

<p>Same with the SAT fee waivers. Adcom asks why not take it more than twice??? Student answers: College Board only allows 2 fee waivers for SAT I, 2 fee waivers for SAT II. Only to be redeemed during junior and senior years. Cannot be used for late applications, cannot be used for standby. ACT fee waiver can only be used with mail-in application, and only once.</p>

<p>College Profile allows 3 schools without charge, after 3 schools payment is required and it does show on your receipt and the form when it is sent to schools. The qualifying question on the Porfile is does student receive free lunch??? So yes, the schools know. They are need-blind, not need ignorant.</p>

<p>Upward Bound participation is based on low-income, first-generation and/or URM status: it falls inder the federal TRIO programs along with McNair Scholars. This program would fall under summer programs and year-long participation. Or the Quest program from Stanford.... All glaring indicators of low-income.</p>

<p>And yes, this is from my kiddos, first-hand.</p>

<p>Kat</p>

42

<p>I haven't read the whole thread yet, forgive me if this point has been made already... but isn't it possible that Af. Action HAS been used for poor minorities.</p>

<p>And that the minority students that ARE wealthy have obtained their places at upper-tier schools the same way as their rich non-minority peers (high SAT scores, AP classes, internships, ect.)? </p>

<p>Seriously, do rich black kids not deserve to ANY school? Wth is that about? And don't tell me adcoms look at them the same unless you are on an adcom...</p>

43

<p>I am not a URM but my D is an athletic recruit. People may chalk up her acceptance to the sport; doubtless the sport helped-- but they'd never know about her loaded schedule; her SATs, her essays, her recs, character. </p>

<p>My neighbors' D is a wealthy (and, in my view, non-disadvantaged) URM who is heading to an Ivy-- people might assume her URM status did the trick. Doubtless it helped, but they would never know about her UW 4.0 and 10 APs at a very hard school!</p>

<p>All people are more dimensional than our labels suggest. I think the best reason for AA is how the non-URM kids can learn this very important truth. </p>

<p>I had some eye-opening friendships with URM kids in my college, having grown up in a lily-white community (1600 kids in my HS, only 1 was black!) These friends' presence in my school and in my life was very good for ME. </p>

<p>College is supposed to change, expand, refine your fundamental assumptions about the world. It is important that there be a multitude of different perspectives, races, economic backgrounds, religions, world views present in the mix.</p>

44

<p>You couldn't have said it better. </p>

<p>But then there is the reverse! A URM kid like my son can grow up surrounded by embassy kids, internationals in a different cultural setting and learn how to cross the line back and forth between many different worlds. And then a scholarship placing him in New England among middle class Americans for a few summers, opened up his world again. Does he have money, no. Does he bring a wealth of experience to the school he will be attending. Yes.</p>

<p>The way I see it: college is the great leveller and the salvation for our society. With 3,600 schools there is a place for everyone at the table.</p>

45

<p>katwkittens has it right, regarding the various flags of low income during the whole application process. That was also the situation with us, with one institution asking for considerable detail as to why we would need a fee waiver. It is very difficult for me to believe that there was any appreciable difference between my D's application assets & those of another female student from her class, both applying to one particular U, both in the same round. They were a dead heat for GPA -- literally, a tie. Their e.c.'s were remarkably similar in type & in scope/accomplishment. Their personalities are so similar that it is easy to confuse them. (Etc.) Both Caucasian/Anglo. The difference? Drastic income difference & "family circumstance" difference. (The indication that the U. did not consider the competing applicant to be underqualified is that she was W/L'ed, not rejected.) Income matters in admissions.</p>

<p>While there may be pressure on public U's to admit in-staters barely qualified over some out-of-staters better qualified, understand that that works also for resident <em>non</em>-URMS against non-resident URMs. An Af-Am'n applying from Arizona will have a tougher standard to meet for UC than a Cauc.Anglo from CA.</p>

<p>And as to Privates, adcoms have a French Pastry Tray from which to choose. In the last several years, and for many years to come, they hardly need to contort the applicant pool to rationalize admitting an underqualified anyone, URM or non-URM. (That is putting aside non-ethnic categories of recruitment & admission agendas -- athletes, celebrities, etc.) That is not to say that an individual adcom member may heavily influence the process at a particular school with one's own agenda -- a la Gatekeepers, etc. But this is why it is imp. for an applicant & family to do the research. Understand what you're in for if it's been publicized that a partic. college/U has a strong priority for anything: residency & geography (yes, this figures into Privates as well), athletes (esp., a partic. sport), URM, test scores, Attitude (don't laugh), or anything else.</p>

<p>My D and I removed a few colleges on her early tentative list due to admission trends & agendas that were obvious at those colleges. It is not even that we believed that she would have an uphill battle applying; it was merely that we disapproved of their admissions priorities or practices, & therefore believed that she would find fewer peers at that school with the same priorities she had. And for us, that recent admissions history put in doubt the overall judgment of the administration. When it came to one college in partic., an initial favorite (maybe THE favorite) on her list, their recent admissions history which made them "controversial" had nothing to do with URM status at all. She never applied there.</p>

<p>As to the various complaints about middle-class and/or wealthy URMs getting admitted to top schools over poorer URM applicants, I wouldn't have stats on that so am not in a position to argue with any authority. However, let's assume that disparity for the moment. Do you see how colleges might experience some tension between, on the one hand, wanting to build a freshman class that's "at home" with each other and fits well, versus broadening the diversity factor with an eye to more than race per se? One does take a risk that an applicant of any race will feel not at home in an environment quite different from his or her background. The tightness of the campus culture may be the critical factor -- making "fit" less important at Columbia than at Washington & Lee & some small, isolated LACs. Stories of these mis-matches are available on CC, sometimes resulting in transfer. Income can be a significant divider when combined with race: I found that out when I taught in a wealthy school district consisting of Cauc. +Af'Am. children of parents in professions. I'm not saying there were <em>no</em> differences evident, just far fewer apparent differences than similarities, making teaching a breeze, by the way. When the district began busing in poor Af'Am students 8 miles away, we suddenly had a very tense campus. I am not arguing against admission of poor URMs into top colleges with a dominant existing culture; I'm just illustrating the balancing problems that colleges have. And every campus has its "culture," & that's also been discussed on CC. My D did not apply to schools with a dominant "jock" culture; she would have been miserable there.</p>

<p>I think that the public should register their opinions to colleges which appear to have an inappropriately rigid or outdated set of priorities or preferences or "type" of student admitted. Obviously, such statements will be better received from highly qualified applicants who never applied there (or were accepted but turned down the offer), than from rejected applicants. And in applying to a school, the focus should be how you, the applicant, match that college's standards for academic excellence, regardless of your background. URM or non-URM, one needs to state how you can make a positive contribution to the stated academic mission of the institution & the offerings available there. <em>Plenty</em> of non-URMs were rejected this year for not making this clear (by self-admission).</p>

<p>Just some thoughts. Not meant to flame.</p>

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<p>Here's a link to what President Clinton's former economic advisor Laura D'Andrea Tyson said about the matter in her article "Needed:</a> Affirmative Action for the Poor" from two years ago. The implication is that as recently as a few classes ago, colleges weren't favoring poor applicants particularly much.</p>

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<p>epiphany, can you be more specific about what "admissions trends and agendas" you found troublesome? How did you get your information?</p>

<p>Does anyone, besides me, remember when being a woman was being a URM? I've spent my life and entire career as a urm...less than 10% of members of my professional organization are women. I was only the 2nd woman in 20 years to graduate from my military training program. I was told explicitly that I would never be permitted to assume the leadership position in my military training program, because I'd "just get pregnant and ruin it all." Men in my field did (and still do) look straight through me when I enter a room to chair a meeting or try to wrest the reins of control of the meeting from me without a moment's thought. AA never helped me. I never expected it.</p>

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<p>Anyone:</p>

<p>If you want your kid to attnd a good college, no parents talk ever about race. Your kids may be punishd in the admision process if a parent spakes about these issues. So be careful.</p>

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<p>guiltguru,
My information about admission trends would be particular to those colleges, of course, so they would be limited to what the colleges publish on their websites, what they admit or advertise in written literature, what they offer to our school's GC as to why a particular student was denied admission, etc. When those trends contradicted what my D was seeking as a priority in her colleges of choice, or when those trends contradicted what the colleges in question claimed were their policies & priorities, they became less desired choices. When either published books or published articles revealing inside information from adcom members came to light as well (regarding particulars of acceptances/rejections, or the methods/processes of the committee), it further solidified her opinion (& mine) about the wisdom of keeping it on the list. An additional source of info would be the EA or ED acceptance stats or trends for any partic. college, if anyone was planning/hoping to apply RD that yr. & serious about acceptance.</p>

<p>I don't think I said that the trends/agendas were "troublesome"; rather, I think I said (& certainly meant) that they did not coincide with my D's priorities, & she & I were realistic about how the results of those policies might affect the ultimate freshman class composition. I'd rather not name specific colleges, because that is even further off the subject of this thread. But I'll tell you that the colleges removed before application were one Public, one Ivy, & one very top LAC.</p>

50

<p>
[quote]
The application fee waiver form from the College Board. It is usually brightly (as in NEON) colored and says you are qualified based on being dirt poor that you qualify to be exempt from paying their app fee.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Now I just feel like an idiot. I used those ugly blue waivers, too. Guess I'm still trying to repress the whole application process. Or it's cuz I forget because I'm not surrounded by poverty.</p>

51

<p>As a child, local newspapers often referred to my neighborhood as "a middle class black community." In college, however, I discovered that White middle class communities bore little resemblance to mine and that when White people with jobs like my parents' lived in neighborhoods that looked like mine, it was a working class community. </p>

<p>I wonder how many of these purportedly "wealthy" URM families are, in reality, just solidly middle class. For example, while many White student's at D's school apply ED, the black students rarely do b/c they need to compare FA offers. </p>

<p>And for all the talk about the unfairness of wealthy URMs getting an admissions "boost," I hear precious little about the unfairness of ED.</p>

52

<p>"As a child, local newspapers often referred to my neighborhood as "a middle class black community." In college, however, I discovered that White middle class communities bore little resemblance to mine and that when White people with jobs like my parents' lived in neighborhoods that looked like mine, it was a working class community. "</p>

<p>I had the same experience. My dad was a dentist, and we lived in a town that overall was upper middle class. Where we lived was literally 1/2 mile from the town dump and about a mile from a housing project that was the adjacent city. I learned when I got to see more of the world that my hometown neighborhood (the only place that my parents could purchase because of restrictive covenants against blacks) was a working class neighborhood.</p>

<p>In addition, while my dad was a dentist, due to racism, he didn't make a lot of money. His patients were the poorest black and white people in the area, and thus, he could not charge much, and often his patients did not pay on time.</p>

<p>I can remember our electricity and phone's being shut off due to his being behind in bills when his patients -- factory workers -- were out on a long strike,</p>

<p>I did not go to expensive summer camps, but spent a summer going in the same local day camp that the low income kids went to. When I turned 16, I started working during the summers. As a h.s. senior, I also worked during the school year.</p>

<p>I suppose that if people heard that I was a fourth generation college student and my dad was a dentist, they may have thought that I was a rich kid somehow getting an unfair advantage. Truth was, I was on need-based aid, and took out loans.</p>

<p>When it came to black students at my Ivy, most were on some kind of need-based financial aid, including those with college educated parents who lived in middle class neighborhoods.</p>

<p>Black wealth is not the same as white wealth. Often the black people who made it are the first in their families to be reasonably financially comfortable. They also may be responsible for helping financially with other relatives. I remember that, for instance, my dad helped out his siblings and we also took in a cousin for almost a year.</p>

<p>In addition, black families are likely to make it to the middle class by having two parents working. This was true even when I was growing up, when working moms were rare for the middle class.</p>

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<p>Very good points NSM.</p>

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<p>great comment NSM.. i agree with you.. my school is also upper-middle class 90% white and very few African Americans the ones that are there feel very out of place.. i was a mentor to one that moved here to make her feel comfortable and i understood how she felt.. even though she lived in town most people thought she was in this school because of some special program.. most people do not realize how hurtful and illogical their prejudices can be</p>