<p>here's something to think about:</p>
<p>1) what if you are a biracial person whose mother is asian and father is black, are you a URM?</p>
<p>2) what about if you're an ethiopian middle class jew?</p>
<p>note: neither of these are my case, but just something i thought about today;)</p>
<p>how about if you are only half human? would that be a hook?</p>
<p>You've been on this website for far too long if you think those circumstances are anything in the way of funny.</p>
<p>Are you making fun of my heritage? I believe you are. You see, I am an Indian born, biracial African Jew with American citizenship who practices Baha'i. Maybe not, but that might be a possible hook I could explore.</p>
<p>I know of many of the case you describe as 1. They do count as URM.</p>
<p>im not trying to offend anybody, im just saying those situations are sort of funny because they are ironic. if the asian/black was an overacheiver would they be asian by stereotypical standards? wouldn't that be a bit hypocritical of a college if they stereotyped somebody and considered him/her asian or black based on his/her test scores or whatnot? just sayin</p>
<p>I was under the impression that you were considered to be whichever race you most associated with. For example, if you were asian but you went to a school with mostly African Americans, your best friend was black, and all your other black friends consider you "one of them" could you report yourself as African American?</p>
<p>Haha, and how do those later pieces of information make it into the application? There is no question about your best friend's ethnicity... There is no place to inform whether or not various members of a specified race consider you "one of them"--certainly not a factor Harvard would consider! I might add! </p>
<p>Anyway, interesting idea.</p>
<p>Does that mean that I can be considered an URM if I had black friends?</p>
<p>I think writing "I have black friends!" on the application might weird Harvard out a bit ; -). You could try it though, and add some other fun facts: </p>
<p>"I eat raisin bran for breakfast every morning!"
"I have a car!"
"I like kittens!"</p>
<p>You never know what the clincher's going to be! ; -)</p>
<p>hmm.....my father was born and raised as a child in Africa, but he's not black (rather, Indian) and he has never lived in India. My mom was born in India and raised here....so what can i put? Am I just asian-american like i always thought. Or is checking off the African-American box an option as well. I'm not asking to give myself an advantage, just curious</p>
<p>I hope you realize that on the application you check a box for your race... so even though I'm as white as white can be, I could check African-American and nobody would know until I showed up on campus. If I happened to actually BE half black, nobody would ever know. They don't request a family tree with the applications... and obviously in case 1, you'd choose to be black because you might get an AA boost. And you'd hope the African-American parent was your dad so your last name wasn't Li, Zhao, or Wu. ;)</p>
<p>The above poster is correct. There's no way they can check the authenticity of the race you put and even if they could they probably wouldn't bother. Ethically speaking, you should put what you really consider yourself to be. But if you're white and you were to lie by putting black or hispanic, you would gain an advantage with little to no risk. Of course Harvard does reserve the right to retract admission at any time (even once you're a student there) if they deem anything on your application to be deliberately false.</p>
<p>They interview the vast majority of applicants though, so it's very likely that they would indeed find out if you lied about your race on your application.</p>
<p>I'm not sure how much information the interviewer actually gets or reports about you... it's entirely possible for the entire interview to occur without anyone ever mentioning race, even if you are a URM. ;)</p>
<p>for full asians, at least, it's nearly impossible to hide your race -- the last name is generally a dead giveaway.</p>
<p>Take mine, for example. Chakravarthy. I am obviously Hispanic.</p>
<p>However, it is highly unlikely that they would assume anything about your race just by looking at you or by the sound of your name. These are very politically correct people we are talking about.</p>