Affirmative action exists for a reason…if you’ve been given privilege because of your race, it’s better to own up to it rather than taking the spot of someone who faced greater obstacles to success. Anyone who really deserves a spot at Harvard will not have to deceive to get it.
They can infer but they aren’t allowed to make a determination based off of that if you put “prefer not to answer”. For all they know, my mother (whose surname I don’t have) could be non-white. Surnames can be deceiving especially if you’re mixed or if you come from a former European colony (eg, in certain regions of India, Indian-born/indigenous peoples of India have Portuguese or English surnames because of their colonial history despite not being of Portuguese or English descent themselves).
That is the concept of American affirmative action…other countries, such as France, take a more intersectional approach and realize that many “invisible” factors should go into affirmative action, including sexual orientation, gender identity, socioeconomic status, disability and geographic location. I know URMs who have gone to great public/private schools, attended expensive summer programs, had private music/dance/art lessons, have reliable transportation/live in an area with public transportation, live in affluent neighborhoods, have a stable home life, are mentally/physically healthy, go on international vacations, have access to the best resources, have never been food-insecure, housing-insecure, or low-income etc. I’d say that a first-generation, low-income, rural/geographically isolated, white person from a single-parent, food- and housing-insecure household living in a poor, working class community is worse off and has had to work harder for their education than that URM. White privilege exists; white people will never have to worry about racism or discrimination based on their race, but privilege extends much farther than race or ethnicity.
It’s not deceptive to decline to answer. I declined to answer questions about my sexual orientation, gender identity, and religion as well for the same reason.
@binlee All I’m saying is don’t get your hopes up, no need to get all passive aggressive. As for “suid,” I don’t know anything specific about it but from the name it sounds like an id of some sort, possibly a unique one. Maybe find a third person who can see this “suid” and see if they also get taken to the admitted students website.
As I said before, it likely means nothing, although it’s fun to speculate.
@Prisoner9430 I’m Hispanic/Asian mixed, and put both down on my app. Didn’t seem to “hurt” anything, but I’m not sure if I was considered a URM or not.
@collegechemistry I think @billbixby34 is right. It’s fine to decline to answer those questions, and that’s why it’s an option. Most of the URM students at Harvard are pretty privileged from what I’ve experienced, anyway. I also doubt race is such a huge factor that choosing to answer or not would make or break an application. So I think getting in is deserved whether or not someone answers the race question.
I actually don’t have my hopes up for Harvard. 2%, baby! Plus, its portal does not show FA doc received dates, which I believe is a far better indicator than inspect element or view page source. That said, different “suid” values in view page source - all linking to the same Admitted Student Website - raises legitimate questions. In your words, “sounds like an id of some sort, possibly a unique one.”
@binlee “suid” must be the code your account gets when you first setup the portal. There’s gotta be a way to organize and file under each user’s stuff on the server/portal. Each applicant needs a unique ID. The long serial-code doesn’t look like cantual student ID we got from some of admitted schools.
@hit123 damn right
@binlee bro idk what drugs you’re on but financial aid does NOT correlate to decisions, the offices aren’t even related
I never said “financial aid correlates to decisions”. I said SOME CHANGES in FINANCIAL AID DOCUMENT PORTAL “RECEIVED” DATES correlate with acceptances. Words matter.
Be yourself and don’t try to come up with clever ways to game the system.
@binlee fine then.
Bro idk what drugs you’re on but changes in financial aid document portal “received dates” DO NOT correlate with acceptances.
The only time this EVER happened was with duke a couple times and Dartmouth last year.
Please stop spreading lies.
So uh when do decisions come out?
26 March @ 19h EST
suddenly realized that that’s three days from now orz
Did anyone else’s school counselor get a call from the admission office asking about current grades a couple weeks ago?
Did anyone receive an email from harvard saying the decisions come out on the 26th? I received one from brown and columbia so i was wondering if harvard sent them out too because i didn’t get one
CNN reporting Harvard President and wife have coronavirus.
@user9999 Yes!! they emailed my counselor asking about final results. I already graduated
did anyone else who got deferred get a second interview with an AO or knows what this means?