This is really about OP and how he decides he/she is Hispanic Cuban. If Mom was adopted as a child, frankly, I don;t get it, not without further info from OP. Adopted by US Hispanics?
There’s a lot of misunderstanding going on here. Including from OP, who wants some schools that are reachy.
Regardless of checkbox, those adcoms will want to see the same sort of show that he does, in fact, have a relationship with the culture. In the real process, there is no magic pass for just saying, “I’m Hispanic.” Even if it appeared on a BC, that alone is NOT one and final the determinant top colleges look for.
Even if a BC says, eg, a parent was born in Puerto Rico, that is not some sole “it.” Any of us could have a kid born out of country.
“Regardless of checkbox, those adcoms will want to see the same sort of show that he does, in fact, have a relationship with the culture.”
Ok but they don’t check for this relationship with culture for ORMs, and that seems to me a little racist, like why does a Hispanic need proof to show they’re one, that they have a relationship with their culture? I know a lot of Asians and whites in the bay area that did very little to show relationship with the culture and got in to the top-20 schools and they didn’t have to provide any proof of ethnicity.
“If the bay area is in California, then most college bound students are heading to state schools that do not use race/ethnicity in admission, so there is no incentive to be dishonest and no reason for the schools to question their honestly here.”
I am talking about the bay area, and your point on public schools is well taken. However I was talking about the white/Asian kids that were admitted to ivies and rest of the top-20 on usnews, they did not have to provide any proof of their ethnicity.
Well, the jury’s still out on that. We have one user who reported being asked by one college. All other reports have been hearsay (e.g. “I read on a separate thread.”)
Regardless, it seems some might be missing the bigger picture. Colleges decide on their own (in places where the law does not prohibit it) how much of a bump, if any, URM will give to an application, so for many colleges, the OP’s original question is moot. Additionally, at colleges where URM is considered, it will be evaluated in context. A Cuban-American applicant that lives in Coral Gables with 2 parents as physicians is not in the same bucket as one growing up with a single mother working 3 jobs and living in Little Havana.
I don’t believe colleges make a habit of demanding copies of birth certificates for admission purposes. You can’t get the birth certificate of a living person and it’s a process to get one for someone who’s passed away, and for good reason. They’d be of limited use anyway. Hispanic is an ethnicity, not a race, and birth certificates generally don’t indicate ethnicity. They don’t necessarily indicate the parents’ place(s) of birth either. Certain scholarships might require documentation to be eligible, but I’ve never heard of birth certificates being among the required documents.
I wouldn’t let my children apply to any college or grant that required them to submit a copy of their birth certificate. If you want to safeguard your identity, you have to safeguard your personal information. Social security numbers are already out there on tax forms. I wouldn’t add a copy of my birth certificate to the mix, and any college that asked for it would drop off my kid’s list in a hurry.
I’ve provided copies of BC so many times for hockey I can’t even count (but I did refuse to give them SSN which was on the form and I know a lot of parents just filled in the form). There is nothing on the BC that isn’t on the college application - name, date of birth, parents’ names, city where born. All right there for the stealing. Really the only info that is on the BC and not splattered all over the application is time of birth and weight.
If someone wants to give me a big scholarship in exchange for the bc, I’ll provide it. Some kids do have to provide the bc or a passport/certificate of citizenship to prove they are entitled to federal financial aid.
I was surprised to learn that my kids’ high school transcripts included a copy of their birth certificates and vaccination certificates. We got to orientation without a copy of the vaccination report and the admissions officer told me it was probably attached to the transcript, called over to the registrar’s office, and had it sent to the health department.
Just for more anecdotal evidence. My D is Hispanic and marked it on her applications. She received National Hispanic Recognition and the form was signed by the Guidance Counselor and she didn’t ask for proof. The School District system says she is Hispanic because when we registered her for K we marked Hispanic and no one ever asked for proof. My D was accepted by UChicago and received merit for NHRP and they never asked for proof or did I read anywhere they might demand proof if she enrolled. My D’s Common App she entered the place of birth of her mother as a country in South America and also her receiving her UG degree from a college in that same country so maybe that satisfied anyone’s desire for proof.
Sorry, I haven’t checked my account in a while. I am genetically between 25 and 50 percent Cuban through my mother. My mother is genetically Cuban, but was adopted by white parents. She was born in America, likely the daughter of those who fled Cuba when Castro took over. I identify as being of Cuban ethnicity as much as I identify with the ancestry on my father’s side. As such, I put that I was Cuban on the Common App.
The complicating factor is that my mother was adopted through a closed adoption, so we have very little information in total about her parents and documents are sparse. We know that she is Cuban, but we don’t know if we could present formal evidence of that. My parents would be able to verbally confirm the ethnicity if needed.
Nearly all of us are saying not to worry. The NHRP is not admissions. If you are asked, for some odd reason, maybe a very particular university scholarship that requires some percentage, you tell your story and that’s that.
But if you’re wiling, I’m curious: how did your mother identify with the Cuban or Cuban-American culture? Did her adoptive parents continue this? Or did she simply let people know at least one of her birth parents was born in Cuba?
Don’t worry about things that may are may not happen; cross that bridge when (more likely if) you come to it. The process is stressful about without undue fretting.
Honestly, I don’t think identifying as Cuban will be that large of a bump, if any, for college applications, unless you can plausibly identify as Afro-Cuban. Hispanic, in general, is not that big of a bump. The exception historically has been if you could say you are Puerto Rican.
you have heard, afaik, about one example of that. Multiple people have posted that it is normally a non-issue. Use logic: why would anybody care? IF they were giving a special scholarship especially for hispanic or cuban students? fair enough. IF you are hoping for a bump, on the basis of URM? as noted in an earlier post, at that point it will be your whole application, not the box you ticked in the ethnicity section that will matter.
@lookingforward what difference does it make how OP’s mother identified with her Cuban heritage? Failure to act/look etc. Cuban doesn’t make her any less Cuban.
@skieurope are you implying that a Cuban growing up in Coral Gables with 2 parents who are physicians is somehow not quite as “Cuban” as someone growing up in Little Havana with a single mother working multiple low wage jobs? And that X University gives Cuban student A less credit for being Latinx vs. Cuban student B? Because frankly that is one of the most racist/classist things I have ever read on CC.
What @skieurope noted in posting #23 is very important as context matters to schools which is why the Common Application asks for the other identifying information as well; our DD’s have a friend who is half Latin American with incredible stats and EC’s and it didn’t help as compared to similar non-URM’s - she got into great schools as did her peers, but it wasn’t a hook like some of her recruited athlete classmates.
I gotta disagree with that. The college gets to check the hispanic box for either scenario, and that’s ultimately what they are tracking. In my area we have a lot of wealthy students of Latin descent, as well as some wealthy kids that are 25% Hispanic and also qualify for the Hispanic scholar program. They do seem to get the ‘bump’
To expand upon my posting #36, I think the additional information asked in the Common Application, such as whether parents have advanced degrees, is part of the holistic admissions process.