<p>I know a lot of students who dwell on the fact that they're a minority in hopes of gaining acceptance into a college. They try to come off as having overcome trials and tribulations, or having gone against the "norm," etc etc. Did you do this?</p>
<p>I didn<code>t, lol I have a lot of pride, and making people feel sorry for me is not something i pride myself on. i rather be accepted for knowing that they thought i was a good fit for their school rather than being accepted cause they sympathize with my being black or the struggles I</code>ve faced.</p>
<p>lol i`m just hoping the forces of the universe are in my favor :D</p>
<p>I did kind of, I wrote my common app essay about being the only minority student at science competitions. I did not write though to engender sympathy but because I have been to science fair for 5 years straight and have NEVER seen another black student who won in the physics division.
That was my like 5th or 4th draft of the essay though, it originally was going to be about being the only black student in Honors Pre-Cal, bc honestly it was the first time I was the only black student and I actually had internal doubts about dropping the class. But after advice from ppl on CC, they said that college essays should demonstrate passion, so I decided to write about the aformentioned instead.
I also kind of used it in my "Why Yale" essay, bc I wrote about wanting to encourage more minority students to pursue science and higher achievements, bc of my experiences at science fair. </p>
<p>I felt that this was okay and not trying to get an "AA boost" only bc my stats placed me already in the top 25% of Yale acceptees, so I figured it was more about trying showing something about me, rather than trying to get in based on race. Something that I like about science though is that it is a PURE meritocracy, so that when I stood beside the other winners I knew it was because I earned it and NOT because of some race based policy.</p>
<p>the only reason these people even know that I'm black is because they asked for race/ethnicity. I really would prefer to be chosen because I'm a good fit for said university. I don't like pity when it comes to things like admissions.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>If you chose to answer the race question (no one put a gun to your head), then you chose to make race a factor and if you are urm, it worked or will work to your advantage; deal with it.</p></li>
<li><p>Why would you think that consideration of race as a favorable factor has anything to do with pity? Lots of groups get a boost in admissions - - legacies, athletes, BOYS, development admits, etc. - - none of which has anything to do with pity. Schools want geog diversity, so an applicant from MO (and certainly WY) will be admitted w/ stats much lower than applicants from NY/NJ/CT/MA/CA. Boys w/ lower stats are routinely admitted over higher-performing girls. Athletes often get a boost - - and at D3 schools (ie: every selective LAC you can think of) they often decide not to play the sport for which they were recruited. So what's the big deal about getting a boost b/c you're urm (at least you will remain urm for the duration of your enrollment)?</p></li>
<li><p>There is no pure meritocracy and even if you are in the top 25% for Yale, lots of applicants w/ perfect stats get rejected every year. You earned your award but you chose to play the race card as a way to distinguish yourself from the other medalists; deal with it and drop the meritocracy crap.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>I repeat, no one forces you to disclose your race, if you choose to reveal your urm status you are doing so to gain an advantage; but so what, everyone is trying to handicap the system.</p>
<p>What I'm saying is I didn't write anything in my essays making any kind of reference to it. Besides that, I was not aware of the 'advantage' that URMs have until after I submitted my applications. As far as pity, I just don't want to be selected just because X university wanted to take in a certain number of black students.</p>
<p>no, my essays were about my passions: what i want to do(and why), my most significant activites (and why I participated in them), i actually talked more about my religion and how its affected my life and my choices than my race. I didnt want to do the traditional "only black kid in my class" thing bc, as you can see from other threads, this is not a unique situation. I only talked about race if it was a designated "diversity" essay and not all my colleges had one. </p>
<p>And I dont feel that if you check off black that means you are doing so to gain an advantage, you are just stating your race!!!</p>
<p>Despite common belief, being black will not cause colleges to overlook unsatisfactory test scores, gpa or a lack of ec's. You still have to be qualified to get accepted. If you look at the african american results thread, u can see that there are plently of highly qualified blacks that could get in no matter what race they checked off. sometimes we get in w/ slightly lower scores, but it's bc of other factors. this goes back to the whole AA debate, and im frankly tired of debating it.</p>
<p>
[quote]
"- There is no pure meritocracy and even if you are in the top 25% for Yale, lots of applicants w/ perfect stats get rejected every year. You earned your award but you chose to play the race card as a way to distinguish yourself from the other medalists; deal with it and drop the meritocracy crap."
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The meritocracy I was writing about was specific to how awards are granted at science fairs, not in regards to college admission. It is not crap, bc the criteria is objective and entirely based on your research. I already admitted that I played "the race card" kind of in my post, but I played it as a distinguishing quality (just the same as if I would have written about my sneakers) bc it was something that was idiosyncratic to me, and not to engender pity as the OP suggested. </p>
<p>
[quote]
"I repeat, no one forces you to disclose your race, if you choose to reveal your urm status you are doing so to gain an advantage; but so what, everyone is trying to handicap the system."
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I actually thought about not disclosing my race, but it would have been obvious from my essay that I wrote before I filled out the application. Also, people don't get an option of not listing race in real life, and people invariably judge people according to race in real life so why not list race?</p>
<p>Only for the fill-in race section.</p>
<p>"And I dont feel that if you check off black that means you are doing so to gain an advantage, you are just stating your race!!!</p>
<p>Despite common belief, being black will not cause colleges to overlook unsatisfactory test scores, gpa or a lack of ec's. You still have to be qualified to get accepted. "</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Everyone knows that being urm is an admissions "hook;" if you identify yourself as being urm you are opting to take advantage of that hook even if your urm status is not the focus or central theme of your application.</p></li>
<li><p>Certainly one must be qualified to be accepted, but hundreds of stats-qualified students are rejected every year; what gives you the edge as a qualified student is your urm status - - just as having a sib at a school gives you a boost as a legacy.</p></li>
</ul>
<hr>
<p>Dbate, sorry I misunderstood that your reference to meritocracy was limited to the sci competition. But still, you are confusing taking advantage of the AA boost w/ being admitted solely b/c of race. Contrary to your post, when you use your urm status to distinguish yourself from other sci medalist and othe candidates in the top 25% of Yale's stat pool you ARE precisely taking advantage of the AA boost - - even though your success was not fully or primarily attributable to race.</p>
<p>The only way to not have your urm status factor in to the decision is to not list your race. It is fine to list race, as you say, in everyday life most of us do not have the option of not revealing our race, but once you list urm status on the college app you're going to get an AA boost. And it is terribly lame to insist, after chosen to identify yoursel as urm knowing that you would be the beneficiary of the AA boost, that the boost didn't matter in your case.</p>
<p>You know what? My daughter wrote about being the only AA female in this, that or the other, without consideration that it was a hook, rather it was a defining experience, which it was. In retrospect, the essay shouted, LOOK AT ME, I'M a MINORITY.</p>
<p>( and trust me..we were oblivious to <em>hooks</em> until I hit these boards and by then all apps had been sent )</p>
<p>I believe, if she (we) had given it more thought, the topic should have been different. I suspect that quite a few of high-achieving URM's, in those circumstances, use that topic, which makes it quite ordinary.</p>
<p>Just something to think about.</p>
<p>Sadly, I'm-am-th-only-black-whatever is on the verge of becomming an anti-hook. But even if one is unawared of "hook" as a term of art, most parents/students/advisors know that urm status will give a student an admissions boost. DD's essay made no refernce at all to urm status; but she "checked the box" and held a leadership position in black affinity group.</p>
<p>Well, my parents and I were completely unaware of the fact that urm even existed, much less the fact that ticking black as my race gave me a boost.</p>
<p>Hard to believe, with all the AA law-suits, articles about college admissions and separate PSAT-based scholarship programs for black and Latino students. But you've certainly known since October when you joined CC!</p>
<p>i didn't do the whole "i was the only black kid in my class" type thing... but yeah, i put down that i was black and one of my essays had to do with that somewhat. but that was more about me being African than being black.</p>
<p>i don't see why anyone should be afraid to put it. i mean, you're only hurting yourself.</p>
<p>When I joined CC in October, I wasn't really on the college part if I recall correctly. I was looking more at that other section for double degrees. I didn't really start posting on here (often) until maybe around December or so. At the time I submitted my college apps, I was abroad (ironically, in America) and wasn't on CC. I saw one or 2 insinuations that Asians had it pretty hard for admissions and a few that being Black should help, but I thought that it was all speculation and didn't see any actual concrete evidence of that until afterward.</p>
<p>In case you haven't realised, I am an international student, so I would not have been exposed to all the news of law-suits and such beforehand.</p>
<p>yea, not all ppl know about the whole urm thing and how AA works</p>
<p>I did but i dont think it such a big deal that just checking ur race off is trying to work the system</p>
<p>i marked it down as my race/ethnicity.</p>
<p>and i had one essay for two schools about an academic pursuit that had to do with tracing family history &such. but that was about it.</p>
<p>"yea, not all ppl know about the whole urm thing and how AA works"</p>
<p>I wasn't surprised that Jcancollege or any other poster didn't know precisely HOW AA "works;" I was surprised that in post-Bakke, admission-crazed America anyone was unaware that AA EXISTED. (Because what is AA if not consideration of race as a facorable factor?)</p>
<p>Believe it or not, we did not about the urm hook thing till we came to CC either. Found cc in part, because I was trying to figure out what this national achievement thing her school told us she got was. ( Actually they didn't remember what it was called, but that it was some PSAT thing for Black people. She was was always one of the top three or four students in her school. There were only about three other Black students in her class. We always thought she was pretty smart by ANYBODIES standards...then I found CC). When we realized what the national achievement thing implied, we were like "Ohhh!.....The rest has been quite a journey.</p>
<p>In retrospect, it wasn't "look at me, I'm the only Black person". It was more like "I'm a little tired of being the only Black person. If you like having "us", there are more of "us" there, and that would be interesting!"</p>