How exactly does ethnicity affect your chances at a ivy or top school?
I am half hispanic and half indian(india). How will that affect me, if at all?
<p>it'll affect you in a very nice way.</p>
<p>I've been wondering that also...</p>
<p>I'm Chinese, Black, Native American, and French. I am mostly Chinese, and I know that will hurt me. But if I state it in my essay, will this help more than hurt?</p>
<p>Oh, and not to feel so selfish...to the OP: that'll help you loads :).</p>
<p>Colleges want to build freshman classes that mirror society in general. As such, the consider people in informal categories such as URM's, legacies, athletes, international students, development cases, and VIP's. Your stats are compared against other applicants in your informal category. It is easier for URM's since there are less qualified people in their category. In general, colleges first want difficulty of curriculum, then gpa/rank, and then standardized test scores. You don't have to be at the very top for these three. After you qualify on the basis of your academics, they consider EC's, essays, and recommendations. They want "passion" in one or two activities rather than a laundry list with little involvement in many activities. Write about your "passion" in the essay and back it up with your resume or activity list. (Large public schools are more numbers driven than midsized universities or LAC's.) For the HYPSM type schools, the whole process resembles a lottery since they have five times more people worthly of being accepted than they have room for. For the close candidates, the waitlist is a way of saying that you were as good as anybody that we accepted but we don't have room. Sometimes they waitlist more people than they accept.</p>