hook at Harvard vs. Yale

[Ohio2city]

I don’t want anyone to take this as me assuming that I will get into a top a school because I am a URM. I know my chances are still very slim. Anyways, I was wondering if it was more likely that I would be accepted as a Black Hispanic at Yale or Harvard? Basically what I am trying to figure out is if one school gets less minority applicants than the other, therefore, making my URM status more “valuable” in the application process at that school. Also please chime in if you know where UPenn or Brown would fall on this subject. Thanks in advance!

[rhandco]

I don’t think you get “double” for being a black Hispanic, just as a white Hispanic doesn’t cancel out the Hispanic “bump”.

There are more than enough qualified URM at the Ivies that it wouldn’t be that much of a hook - look at the generic “average SAT bump” articles to get an idea, and only use that as a guide.

Go to each college’s admissions page and they should have statistics on who applies and who is accepted by race.

Here is Harvard’s admitted students profile:
https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics

If you look at a site like this:
http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=444

you can find Multi-racial (not Hispanic or Latino) as a category, so you likely would fall only under Hispanic.

The “bump” is usually so little that you had better be pretty darn close to bother to apply at all. I have interviewed many URM and non-URM for my Ivy alma mater, and the only students who have gotten in were Asians; no URMs were admitted. Do not overestimate “how badly” the top schools want diversity (just as Asian students shouldn’t overestimate the impact of their race).

[gibby]

If you look through the Harvard and Yale Class of 2019 Decision Threads, you’ll see that URM tests scores are just about the same as non-URM test scores. So, there is very little bump from being a URM.

Harvard Class of 2019 SCEA Decision Thread http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/1714730-official-harvard-university-2019-scea-decisions-only-p1.html

#11 - Female, Black, deferred with ACT 29

21 - Male, Hispanic, accepted with SAT of 2220 and ACT 35

29 - Female, African American, accepted with SAT 2240

30 - Female, African American, accepted with SAT 2130

39 - Male, African American, deferred with SAT 2230

40 - Female, African American, accepted with SAT 2400

44 - Female, African American, sibling, accepted with SAT 2140

47 - Male, African American, deferred with SAT 2010 and ACT 25

57 - Male, Hispanic, deferred with SAT 2220 and ACT 32

62 - Male, Black, accepted with ACT 32

63 - No gender listed, African American, accepted with ACT 32

Harvard Class of 2019 RD Decision Thread: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/1752941-harvard-university-class-of-2019-rd-results-p1.html

#1 - Male, Hispanic, accepted with SAT 2300

3 - Male, Hispanic, accepted with ACT 33

6 - Male, Hispanic, waitlisted with ACT 35

7 - Male, Hispanic, rejected with SAT 2340

10 - Female, African American, accepted with SAT 2100

21 - Male, Hispanic,accepted with ACT 31

33 - Female, African American, accepted with SAT 2380

Yale Class of 2019 SCEA Decision Thread
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/1713050-yale-class-of-2019-scea-decisions-p1.html

#3 - Male, African American (Questbridge), deferred with SAT 1940 and ACT 35

15 - Male, Hispanic, deferred with SAT 2400

17 - Male, Hispanic, deferred with ACT 33

18 - Male, African American, accepted with SAT 2230

33 - Female, Cuban, accepted with SAT 2270 and ACT 33

34 - Male, African American, rejected with SAT 2030

35 - Female, Hispanic, deferred with SAT 1980

46 - Female, Mexican, accepted with SAT 2170

Yale Class of 2019 RD Decision Thread: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/1752938-yale-university-class-of-2019-rd-results.html

#9 - Male, Hispanic, rejected with SAT 2170

11 - Female, African American, rejected with SAT 2100

14 - Female, Latina, waitlisted with SAT 2200

20 - Male, Hispanic, rejected with SAT 2300

22 - Female, African American, accepted with SAT 2240 composite and ACT 35

23. Female, Hispanic, accepted with SAT 1910 (ranked 8th in her class of 465 students with an UW 3.9 GPA)

Based upon the College Confidential data from last year, my take: Harvard seems to attract more URM’s with top scores – and those students are rejected and accepted with about the same frequency as non-URM students. Yale seems to attract more URM’s with lower test scores (possibly because of Questbridge), but for the most part URM’s with low test scores are not being accepted. And just like Harvard, URM’s with top test scores are rejected.

So, apply to whichever school you like the best in the SCEA round and apply to the other one RD. Best of luck to you!

[Hunt]

While I think URM status will help you at Harvard and Yale, I don’t think there’s any reason to think that it will help you more at one than the other. There might be some competitive schools where it might make more of a difference though. Top LACs, maybe?

[JHS]

As far as I know, no college provides statistics on its applicant pool or its admitted class by race; they only provide racial breakdown figures on the enrolled class.

I doubt there is any meaningful difference in minority applicant pool share or admissions among Harvard, Yale, Penn, and Brown that doesn’t reflect a fundamental difference difference among the institutions and their overall policies. If you care about getting the most advantage possible, you should probably look at smaller, more rural, less well-known colleges.

[gibby]

^^ General statistics are collected by “The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education” detailing black acceptance rates at top colleges. Nothing is broken down though in terms of test scores, but Harvard has a black acceptance rate of 6.8%, while UVA has a 35.3% black acceptance rate. http://www.jbhe.com/2014/12/black-first-year-students-at-the-nations-leading-research-universities/

[JHS]

Wow. That’s a really interesting chart, with numbers I haven’t seen anyplace else, even if most of the colleges refused to supply complete details. Fascinating that at most colleges reporting enough data the URM admission rate boost is very modest, but at Northwestern it’s almost double the overall rate.

[gibby]

^^ Yes, every URM should have Northwestern on their list!

[oxoxhawja3xoxo]

Being a URM can help you only if you’re qualified in the first place. It will definitely have equal value at both Harvard and Yale though, because neither of these schools are really hurting for black applicants. If you really want to help your chances, apply to some of the top tier liberal arts colleges that are really really pushing for blacks and Hispanics. Mostly because, a lot of minorities don’t even know these schools exist. Schools like Williams, Pomona, Swarthmore, Wellesley, Claremont McKenna, Amherst, etc. That’ll give you a serious URM boost.