I think when you’re talking about colleges with single digit admission rates, or close to it, the thing that gets you in won’t be what box you check. I think you have to dig deeper than that.
One other advantage of being from a very high income family able and willing to fully fund your college education is that, unlike most college students, you will not be restricted by cost considerations when choosing colleges. Be thankful for that.
@austinmshauri Thanks for the advice. I have a good list of safeties and matches in my opinion and would be content going to my state school’s honors college if given a full ride.
@evergreen5 I think my Hispanic heritage is what will ultimately help set me apart from other top applicants. At these high-level schools, you look at what can possibly boost you above others and I genuinely believe that for me it’s my heritage.
@austinmshauri from how I understand it, most competitive applicants are going to have the same objective stats (near perfect 4.0s, sat/acts, subject tests, etc). What sets applicants apart are their essays, ecs, and letters of recommendation. If a student really connects with their heritage and shows it through their essays and extracurriculars, I do believe that it can set them apart from others.
@ucbalumnus I’m extremely thankful that I won’t have to take out any loans for my undergrad, but I do want to make sure that I’m not too much of a burden on my parents financially if the school that I get into isn’t really worth 60-70k a year and doesn’t give any merit aid.
@Sebas514 My impression - which is why I wanted to pose the question, I’m still learning here too - is that your heritage may only set you apart from other top applicants by a tiny bit. For the applicant who has it all, top grades/scores/rigor and ECs and whatever character/drive/fit, the secret sauce the most selective colleges are looking for, the heritage component may be a nice addition to the app but may not make a significant difference in outcome. Lots of gray area and no formula other than successfully communicating via the app that the applicant has the secret sauce, i.e. personal qualities of a person likely to be successful at the college and in life in general.
On the other hand, I wonder whether, in a holistic view of an app, a lot of small things (of which non-disadvantaged URM heritage might be just one) might add up to put an applicant into the admit pile, moreso at selective colleges that are outside of the under-10% (or outside of the under 20% ?) admit rate. At what level of selectivity might the URM box make any significant difference in outcome for the otherwise advantaged, competitive applicant?
“…not…boost between the advantaged URM and the disadvantaged URM, but rather whether an advantaged URM (who is otherwise competitive, like OP) will have any boost at all compared to the non-URM advantaged applicant”
Why can’t CC just look at what this one kid has done, not assume this is just about ethnicity. It’s OP’s record and that of other kids that makes them interesting, in the first place. Or Not. “Advantaged” isn’t a review point. They aren’t admitting his parents.
“I think my Hispanic heritage is what will ultimately help set me apart from other top applicants.” Again, it’s not the fact of your heritage, your back story, whatever.
@evergreen5 Yea, but see none of us know exactly “how much” top colleges use affirmative action (and other factors). There is no set statistics or profile that will get a student accepted to a top school. You don’t see schools saying: “if you are an Asian applicant you need x,y, z test scores, x, y, z extracurriculars, and x,y,z essays and if you’re a Hispanic applicant then you need the same scores -40 or whatever”. What we do know, however, is that the urm population at Berkeley and UCLA got cut by nearly in half after anti affirmative action legislation got passed, so it is a factor.
I found this article about how admissions work at Williams, a top LAC.
http://ephblog.com/2010/12/02/academic-rating-at-williams/
“If you are a typical 3 (1400 SAT, 700 achievement tests, 4s on your AP exams), you will be rejected unless you have a specific attribute or hook.
And this is where Williams, and other elite schools, can become a bit dishonest. They sometimes like to pretend that it is common for such hooks to include things like “being a great kid” or “significant concern for the environment” or “wonderful musician.” This is not a lie in so much as, every once in a while, such a hook might make a difference. But 90% of the time or more, the students who are accepted to Williams without being an AR 1 or 2 fall into just a few special buckets: recruited athlete (Williams coach knows your name and wants you), under-represented minority (checked the black and/or Hispanic box on the Common Application), socio-economic (neither parent has a BA and you check the financial aid box) or legacy (parent or grand-parent went to Williams). Other attributes (development, employee child, local resident) can matter too, but athlete/URM/socio-ec/legacy are by far the four largest drivers of admissions for applicants with an academic rating below 2.”
It’s a pretty interesting read and I believe it’s how other top privates do admissions similarly as well. Also keep in mind that Williams list socioeconomic status and URM as different.
@lookingforward That’s true. In the end, colleges are looking for interesting individuals who will fill up their classes. They, of course, must first be qualified academically but must also be a good fit for the school.
Thanks. It was just a question, not an assumption, just another pathetic attempt on my part to peer inside the black box of holistic admissions. If the answer is that no, URM status does not make an applicant more interesting (or at least not significantly), then the answer is no.
(Disadvantaged seems to be a context within which a particular applicant’s record may be viewed and I only mention advantaged as designating non-disadvantage, to distinguish from low-economic contexts.)
@Sebas514 Exactly, it would be nice to know how much. I don’t think it’s much, but perhaps greater than zero for some schools/situations.
OP, like so many on CC, you seem to be assuming all top performers are equal. Not. Many struggle with their apps and supps, often based on assumptions. And then, the matter of ‘mistaken’ assumptions. (Like that line about Asian Americans needing higher scores. Not at all what the study concluded, nor did it have enough detail, to say.) And the Eph stuff is not definitive.
Don’t over-analyze, by starting with some detail and trying to work back for formula. Instead, read all you can that the colleges do say, on their web sites and their other resources. (Not outside blogs, hearsay.) Don’t dig yourself into a hole. The top and tippy top colleges have the luxury of cherry picking. It may seem one must have x and y, but when a college is picking what they see as the best in all respects, more than stats, numbers can seem to slant. That doesn’t mean “numbers” are a brick wall.
You have a private admissions counselor?
@lookingforward The Asians needing higher scores was just an example; I could’ve said that they needed lower scores because a school won’t say exactly what it’s looking for from its applicants in terms of test scores and gpa.
I do have someone that helps me with my writing (rearranging sentences, fixing run-ons, etc) because English is my second language and I don’t consider writing to be my strong point. She doesn’t (didn’t) help me what schools to apply to - I did my own research, picked the ones I liked and have the deadlines on a spreadsheet.
Top tier schools want URMs. If you are an URM and can afford to pay full fare, that’s jackpot for those schools.
OP. it’s not all about stats. Kids need to meet a rough bar, then all the rest matters and defines chances. A val with an Intel award, plus she’s an Olympic athlete, cured cancer, still has to match holistically. You have a good chance thread, don’t get complicated now. Know what a match is to your targets, what they value, more than stats.
@lookingforward thanks. I’ll try my best to keep things simple and hopefully that pays off come the spring.
@oldfort Hopefully.