<p>Leaving out the Egyptian part obviously. Egypt is in Africa though a lot of people don't know it. Isnt law all about the details anyway? Seriously though, how awkward is it when I show up? I am not looking for your ethical take on this. I just want to know how ballsy I'd have to be to try it. I look like I'm from Italy if you're wondering. I identify much more with cracker culture than african american culture, but whatevs.</p>
<p>Go for it. But keep in mind that willful misrepresentation can leave you with a whole lot of debt and a worthless piece of paper and no law career.</p>
<p>Is that really considered misrepresentation?</p>
<p>Yes, African-American is a term which has a meaning and it doesn’t include Egyptians.</p>
<p>It is unquestionably fraudulent. Ask yourself how an admissions officer would react if a white immigrant from South Africa applied as an African American? The reaction would be similar for an Egyptian. Arabs are not URM’s, even Arabs from Africa.</p>
<p>I haven’t given this much thought, but, it has fail written all over it. If you want to be coy, simply choose not to reply to the question.</p>
<p>I had a classmate who did precisely what you are thinking of doing for undergrad admissions and got away with it by gaining admission to an HYPS school despite some eyerolls from some of us high school classmates. Though he is ethnically Indian, he claimed he was “African-American” because his family migrated and lived in East Africa for a generation before emigrating to the US. </p>
<p>Don’t know whether law school admissions or more importantly, the local bar association’s character and fitness assessment will be as tolerant about this.</p>
<p>African-American is a term that was invented because someone thought “Black” American should no longer be considered politically correct. It was never intended to refer to those with Egyptian heritage or otherwise expand the class of those who were considered URM when the term was “black.” Schools rely on a person’s honesty when seeking consideration as a URM, i.e., they don’t go around trying to determine or investigate whether the applicant is actually telling the truth and generally do not question it after the fact, so if you are asking whether you can potentially get away with being dishonest (I prefer that word to your “ballsy”) the answer is probably yes.</p>
<p>[Schools rely on a person’s honesty when seeking consideration as a URM, i.e., they don’t go around trying to determine or investigate whether the applicant is actually telling the truth and generally do not question it after the fact, so if you are asking whether you can potentially get away with being dishonest (I prefer that word to your “ballsy”) the answer is probably yes. ]</p>
<p>Schools may not, but if some former classmate or anyone else who knows of this decides to notify the bar association in which student like my HS classmate decides to practice, he’s may have some serious questions facing him during the Character & Fitness assessment. If those questions aren’t cleared up in a satisfactory manner and the local bar association takes a dim view, he may end up not being able to practice due to character fitness issues.</p>
<p>Why don’t you focus on getting a high GPA and high LSAT?</p>
<p>You will be VERY screwed. Just think, the African-American Law Student Association outreaches to you to join their events, under the understanding that you really are AA. When they find out that you lied you will be ostracized. Law school is hard enough, why would you put yourself through that?</p>
<p>Again, focus on GPA and LSAT. If it is not high enough, there is more to life than the T-14.</p>
<p>This is a great idea. I fully encourage you to go ahead with it… Judging from your last sentence, I would love to have you as a competitor in my law school class.</p>
<p>Hahahaha! I was waiting for someone to point that out.</p>
<p>“Leaving out the Egyptian part obviously. Egypt is in Africa though a lot of people don’t know it. Isnt law all about the details anyway? Seriously though, how awkward is it when I show up? I am not looking for your ethical take on this. I just want to know how ballsy I’d have to be to try it. I look like I’m from Italy if you’re wondering. I identify much more with cracker culture than african american culture, but whatevs.”
I don’t know why people are encourgaing you to break the law and lie except for the fact that they realize that an otherwise competitive candidate is kicking himself in the face. The colleges clearly define urm’s of the african american group as belonging to to the black racial groups of Africa (which excludes those white south africans, white kenyans, and non black northern Africans). The other problem with this besides the ethical part is that it will be very easy for you to be caught, such as when your advisor pulls up your profile and it says African and you obviously look like typical Egyptian (who is not African looking). There will be numerous opportunities for you to be caught, OCI recruitng urms could rat you out, other students recruitng urms, class mates, people in the admissions office, most law schools are small especially in the t-14, I was in a program of 400 people for 4 years and new everyone by the end, it would be hard to pull off what your suggesting. Realize other students who work in the school will also have access to your files and with a cut throat environment…</p>
<p>You are right it is a ballsy move because there is a high chance of you being screwed
1- you could get kicked out in your 3rd year or basically any time, leaving you with 200-300k in debt and no degree, no chance to obtain a degree, and possibly a criminal record as it says right on the form lying to the admissions committee is a form of fraud.
2- Even if you get away and graduate you can at any time in your career be de-barred, lose your license to practice law and basically be screwed and left with only your undergraduate degree. If this is something you did in your undergrad degree it could happen again to that degree too, as they will call your previous college and you could actually los both your degrees in addition to ability to practice law
3.Finally if you can’t get into the t-14 w/o cheating, don’t you think you may encounter significant difficulty in competing there? Even in the t-14 with the except of the t-3, which I am assuming your not competitive for other wise you wouldn’t be cheating, the bottom 20-30% of the class does not really have the same great prospects as the rest of the class even from lesser schools. That is 54% of the class at fordham, the top half basically pulls down 150k or more on average. However the bottom 20-30% of nyu can’t make top law simply because they have too many b minus and cs on their transcript. </p>
<p>My suspicion is this is where you will rank in your class if you make it in (remember you already know your not competitive without cheating so your not going to place in the top half of your class who didnt cheat). So yes lets say you get not caught but it might not even help you in the long run. One is better to be top 10% of their class in a top 30-15 school than bottom 30 of a t-14</p>
<p>Just wear blackface when you go to admissions interviews/ walk around on campus after getting accepted. They’ll never know the difference.</p>
<p>Are the law schools in the business of policing ethnicities?
I am 1/4 Hispanic and that is what I put on my college apps and my law school apps. I also got the National Hispanic Recognition Award in high school. To receive that aware, you have to have a certain PSAT score and be at least 1/4 Hispanic. I am also white and checked “white” and “other hispanic” on the law school apps.
One grandparent was from Uruguay, making me 1/4 Hispanic. However,this grandparent (my grandmother) had grandparents who originally came from Europe (not Spain). These are my great-great-grandparents. So, my great grandparents and one grandmother were from Uruguay. How far back do they go?</p>
<p>Officially speaking, law schools consider Mexican-Americans and Puerto Ricans as underrepresented. Other Hispanics are technically not considered URMs anyway.</p>
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<p><a href=“http://www.policydiary.com/2010/03/applying-to-law-school-as.html[/url]”>http://www.policydiary.com/2010/03/applying-to-law-school-as.html</a></p>
<p>“Schools may not, but if some former classmate or anyone else who knows of this decides to notify the bar association in which student like my HS classmate decides to practice, he’s may have some serious questions facing him during the Character & Fitness assessment. If those questions aren’t cleared up in a satisfactory manner and the local bar association takes a dim view, he may end up not being able to practice due to character fitness issues.”</p>
<p>So basically if he keeps his mouth shut and nobody knows about this other than people on CC he is good to go.</p>
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<p>Not necessarily as he will always have the risk of someone notifying the law school and/or the bar association about his “stretching the truth” and thus, cause him to possibly lose admission and/or problems with character & fitness assessment when he goes to the bar and/or is a member. Local bar associations tend to look poorly on prospective or current lawyers who were found to have lied or withheld critical information about themselves to/from the local bar. </p>
<p>Moreover, it won’t just be him and the people on CC who knows about this. Classmates at his undergrad, law school admissions officers/staff, law school classmates…especially those in African-American law student associations doing outreach to newly arriving 1Ls, anyone else he may have told about what he did could all be potential informers. Reasons could range from professional/ethical obligation to feelings of jealously/animus against the OP for a whole range of possible reasons.</p>
<p>You would be suprised at how small law school classes are and how people’s paths end up crossing. It would not be a secret that would be kept for long.</p>