How do colleges view hispanics?

Student Lounge Hispanic Students
1

Hello, I am a high school senior who is going to be completing the common application and applying to several very elite schools in the next few weeks. Among these schools are Stanford, Princeton, and University of Chicago. I was reading around and heard something about a stickied post (that must have been stickied several years ago because I no longer see it) that was pertaining to hispanic students applying to college, saying that not all hispanic applicants are at an advantage.

While I certainly have other aspects that will help me get into college, my ethnicity is a big part of my life, as my father is an immigrant Central American. I was still curious as to how I could present this to colleges in order to be at some sort of an advantage along with all of the other aspects, as I know that applying to these colleges can be such a blind man’s game.

2

Being Hispanic and not being URM may not be an advantage. So if you’re white with Spanish ancestors, probably no advantage; if you’re mestizo with Mexican ancestors, there may be an advantage. Each college, where not prohibited by law (like California public colleges) are free to make its own determination as to what is URM and what role, if any, it will play in the admission’s process. One such definition is:

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Medicine/diversity/urm_definition.html