<p>I'm from an "Underserved Minority" ethnic background and it was whispered to me by an advisor that I should look into programs that would give me an added benefit due to my status as a minority.</p>
<p>What are these programs?</p>
<p>I know that I have another "UM" friend that graduated from the undergrad program I'm currently in who had a significantly lower GPA than the rest of their cohort at USC Law School, but she got scholarship funding assistance as well. </p>
<p>I'm in a top 20 university and I am a Junior and am well situated in my Economics/Math/Business program to be able to pursue graduate studies in Econ, Finance or Law and I don't know which of the three I want to do. I plan to decide over the rest of my Jr. year and then spend all of this next summer cramming for the GRE, GMAT or LSAT before putting my applications together.</p>
<p>My cum GPA is a 3.62 right now and I'd like to get into the best school I can, or to get the best financial aid/scholarship package that would make it more worthwhile to go to the next level down of a program. My advisor in the Minority Affairs office told me of another classmate of mine who was just offered a full CoA scholarship to Michigan Law.</p>
<p>Side note: I am, by name and language background, clearly Hispanic but I also have ancestry of non-Black African origin of a substantial enough amount that it would not be at all disengenuous for me to be noted as such. I would worry about feeling the wrath of someone else's ignorance at what an African looks like (that part of my family looks more Qaddafi than Mandela), especially when it would have limited marginal benefit to someone who is already also Hispanic.</p>
<p>If there's any information regarding source material or studies on this subject that someone knows about, please share. I'm an indulgent reader on the topic of graduate school.</p>
<p>Most programs have extra money to give to minority applicants. Google is your friend for whether your program of choice has scholarships you would qualify for. By the way, I would not mention north african ancestry in the application because they (and all middle easterners) are considered white by the powers that be.</p>
<p>Your best bet might be to look for fellowships/scholarships aimed at specific minority groups instead of programs. In general, grad departments are looking for the best researchers they can get, and don’t care as much about the personal story of applicants. If your family’s heritage or how you were raised will give you some unique perspective on the field you’re interested in pursuing, then great, maybe bring it up in your personal statement. Otherwise it probably won’t be much of a concern to the admissions committee. Unlike in undergrad they’re not interested in building a diverse, well rounded class. They’re looking for people they’re willing to spend $70k a year on to do work for them.</p>
<p>That said, there usually are some professors that prefer certain kinds of students. For example, I know female professors that seem to prefer female students, professors from some countries that always tend to have about 75% of their students coming from their country, etc.</p>
<p>A lot of the times grad students like to gravitate towards PI’s they believe they’ll be comfortable with…</p>
<p>For example, a lot of female grad students feel that they’ll get a fair shake with a female PI. Or a Chinese grad student may feel more at ease with a Chinese PI due to cultural and language familiarity.</p>
<p>In other words, a female PI may have a lot of female grad students simply because an overwhelming number of female grad students want to work for the PI.</p>
<p>So should I chase a particular faculty member? I know of two prominent faculties on the east coast which have people I’m huge fans of. One of them has a prominent member who is of my particular ethnicity who is from a couple of towns over from my Grandma. He’s also brilliant.</p>
<p>Let me be level - I’m an African American woman myself. Many graduate programs, especially ones with very tiny black and Hispanic populations, do aggressively recruit minority applicants (generally understood as African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans, and sometimes Asian Americans depending on the program).</p>
<p>However, aggressive recruitment is a little different than “added benefit.” If you are an excellent candidate otherwise, then being an ethnic minority will make the school very excited. But if you are a really borderline candidate, I don’t think being an ethnic minority is going to be the tipping point for you to get in. Maybe in undergrad admissions, but grad and professional school are very different animals.</p>
<p>I will say that aggressive recruitment DOES sometimes mean that there are scholarships and grants set aside for ethnic minority candidates, even at law schools. Not having applied to law school, I don’t know where they are. Particularly in math and economics I think you’ll find such opportunities.</p>
<p>You should focus on individual faculty members anyway. In math especially - and probably economics too - you’ll have to have an advisor who does work at least similar to your interests. You will work with that professor in shaping your program of study, including your dissertation.</p>
<p>* Affirmative action. Now there’s an idea. Honestly I don’t think it exists. The other day I saw a black lesbian female with down syndrome…she didn’t get into Harvard!!</p>
<p>So…there you have it…9 or 10 responses. Which ones were helpful? </p>
<p>I am bookmarking this, because I so often here of all the money “they” are handing out to under represented minorities, but whenever I ask for specifics, someone says “just google it!”. Well I have, and I believe the reports are exaggerated. </p>
<p>But OP I understand, you are asking about admissions and not scholarships.</p>
<p>I think that almost every department has some kind of minority scholarship because they typically come from external funding sources. Often, however, because some are in fields that do not attract minorities (STEM), they go untouched. I can think of at least one example where a very generous fellowship ($30k/year for four years) has been offered for several years now but has gone unclaimed because the department has not been able to attract a single qualified minority student to work in their area of expertise.</p>
<p>Pro-tip: if you’re not of Mexican-American or Puerto Rican descent, you can kiss any minority admissions boost goodbye for law school admissions. So even though you’re Hispanic, you might not qualify for a boost.</p>
<p>"About the North African, a friend of the family who is Egyptian was told that she could not claim to be African even though she had a Beyonc</p>
<p>^^^I wonder if local examples are harder to come by in California.
I HAVE found it easier to find “help” In STEM fields, especially at the grad level. You are right; the help is often in an area without many interested parties. I assume that is why they are there.</p>
<p>Exactly; the idea is to attract more ethnic minorities to those fields by throwing money at us, lol.</p>
<p>The problem is that a lot of us leak out of the pipeline before we can even consider the higher level stuff with the money. You can’t get a great fellowship for a math PhD program if you never took cal II, for example.</p>
<p>@Juillet: Naw, I don’t think that the point is to attract more ethnic minorities by throwing money at them. I think it’s more of an approach of saying that because demographically there is a harder time for ethnic minorities to get money to support them from their family then they are providing funding to help the minority succeed. I know a lot of wealthier kids whose family has (1) bought a condo for them to live in near school or (2) pays tutors to help them in school, meanwhile my friends are dropping out to work and whatnot. I know that’s a problem for a lot of people but I think it’s more often the case with minorities.</p>
<p>@PrettyGirlRock: My friend is black, of Egyptian nationality. She was my friend for years before I even learned that she wasn’t African-American, but actually from Africa. But yeah, on my Mom’s side the North Africans moved to Mexico, had kiddies and came to USA. My Mom came here after HS. My friend Mar</p>