What percentage of a race or ethnicity does one need to have to qualify as that group for the purpose of college admissions? I have an adopted child who appears white but his dna indicates otherwise.
We’ve had a few treads on this and the posters with some knowledge agree. In general, it isn’t about DNA testing. Did you raise this child as “otherwise?” This is about how one identifies himself and that relates to the cultural experiences and contributions he can bring to campus.
It isn’t the skin tones that bring diversity to a college. It’s the cultural experiences.
The “honest” answer would be based on:
A. What categories do the student self-identify as, other than when box checking?
B. What categories do others commonly identify the student as?
My daughter was adopted from China at 11 months. She was raised in a middle class caucasian household. Has no desire to go back to China. I’m pretty sure she identifies herself as Asian when asked to check a box on standardized test, passport and common application college application.
Remember that your autosomal DNA results are estimates. Your sons results may change in the future as testing companies update their algorithms.
@FarmerMom IMO that is a different circumstance. I imagine your D looks Chinese and I imagine you have told her the circumstances of her adoption and from an early age she grew up wiht an understanding of her ethnicity/background. In contrast, the OP had no idea of his/her “ethnicity” until the DNA test results came back.
This question is awfully vague but I’m assuming that the OP hopes to have their kid gain some sort of admissions advantage because of what was revealed by DNA testing. In that case I agree with @ucbalumnus. But I think the situation with adoptees is a lot more complicated than meets the eye. And it’s not just a question of whether the kid is obviously of a different race than the adoptive parents.
Adoptees, in my opinion, should not be forever bound by their adoptive parents’ ethnicity or the assumptions made during childhood. It’s natural for adoptees to want to explore their biological roots and want to learn more about where they came from. I’m an adoptive parent whose kid recently did DNA testing. She did Ancestry and 23andme. She’s mostly applying to our in state universities which are auto admit, so for her this is not about trying to game the system. (She was already admitted to several before she even did the testing.) It’s about discovering who she is, where she came from, and how she wants to identify going forward.
I had briefly met her biological mother and maternal grandmother when we adopted her, and guessed that the grandma was probably Hispanic. Over the years D looked in the mirror and also speculated that she is partially Hispanic. I know that what constitutes Hispanic is complicated. It’s not just the percent of what the testing companies describe as Native American or Spanish/Iberian. But what has stood out to us is the names on her list of relatives. By my rough guess 60-70% of the “DNA relatives” have names like Chavez, Garcia, Gonzalez, Moreno, Armijo, Perez, Quintana, Montoya, etc. Names that I would customarily associate with Hispanic heritage. Several of the closest ones (2nd/3rd cousins) have public family trees that show a presence in New Mexico going back generations.
She wants to identify at college as Hispanic and join organizations like the Hispanic Engineers group. She hopes to eventually meet biological relatives although so far our efforts to reach out have not received a response. But the bottom line is that I feel strongly that she is entitled to expand her identity beyond that of her adoptive parents and beyond the assumptions made by others when she was a child.
I’m not sure anyone is disagreeing, at least I’m not. But there is a difference between adopting a child that assumes she’s Latina based on bits and pieces she has gleaned (whether subsequent DNA testing, if any, confirms/denies/is ambiguous) and has explored that avenue in various ways vs a kid who was adopted from Russia, looks white (whatever that means), identifies as such, but 2.5 minutes before submitting a college application discovers he has some percentage of African blood from a DNA test. Where the OP’s kid falls on that spectrum is unclear since the post, as previously noted, is vague.
OP’s question wasn’t about an emotional or other pull that makes you want to explore. It was a queston about raw percentages and what’s enough.
For college app purposes, this is more than finding out you have previously unknown dna composition and suddenly deciding you’re enough of that to use it to claim URM.
The question is asked about the ethnic identity, not some lineage details. If you discover NA, way back, but have absolutely no connection, no interest ever pursued, etc, it’s not going to tip anything.
It’s different to have an Aha! moment and then becoming interested. @Corinthian, your D may be a different case.
It is a self reporting statistic. If he feels Hispanic or black or Asian, he should check that box. There is also a question on ethnicity, Hispanic or not.
In most cases, it will not matter. There might be some groups that extend invitations to join or participate in events at the school, but it really doesn’t help much in admissions at most schools. My friend’s daughter is Asian and was invited to a minority ‘jump start’ program over the summer at her school. She explained many times she was not raised Asian and didn’t feel like a minority, but she was still asked to come and it worked out pretty well. She got an extra scholarship and has some special advising. Since she lives about 10 miles from the school, she was an ‘in the know’ person so could help others get used to things.
My own daughter is Asian and did check the box even though she doesn’t consider herself anything but American. There were a lot of international students at her school but she did not socialize with them.
In many cases, it does matter.