<p>So im a pretty unique candidate, not quite standard columbia. Scores aren't the best, grades are good, schedule is good. Rather than tons of clubs and such, I'm a three sport athlete (football, indoor track, outdoor track), 3 sport captain, all conference in track, and many awards in all of them. Then typical national honors society, peer leaders, etc. However, I am a Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander~ My Essay is all about diversity (diversity of family... hawaiian catholic mother, jewish russian father, atheiest comedian brother, christian humanitarian sister, etc.). So how much will diversity and minority status help? Thanks</p>
<p>And forgive my ignorance, but is Native Hawaiian/Pacific islander a URM?</p>
<p>It will be a very significant advantage for you:
especially in light of your other activities and your essays.</p>
<p>Wait, you’re not a URM. And what’s unique about a Jewish-Asian / Jewish-Catholic couple? And there’s nothing unique about being a multi-sport athlete. And being a jock only gets you so far unless you’re a recruited athlete.</p>
<p>Yeah, I think you are a URM and it always helps no matter what, but I think at Columbia–an incredibly diverse school–it is not as useful at a school with a much more “white” population, like Dartmouth or small New England liberal arts schools. Don’t worry though, it is still better than being white.</p>
<p>why isn’t it a URM? they have it as one of those separate boxes and there are a lot less of them than white people applying. I guess maybe its not officially considered it because they don’t list it separately when they show admissions statistics, but I think it is still helpful</p>
<p>So what exactly defines a URM and who falls under its classification?</p>
<p>you’re not a URM, so don’t worry about this. three sport captain is nice though.</p>
<p>I don’t understand affirmative action, most (top) schools don’t even have 50% white people when the US population is 60%+ white. Yet…there are usually 15%+ asians when the population is only 5% asian. </p>
<p>It looks like as long as you’re not white your ethnicity can only help you. (So yes it will help you)…</p>
<p>if you don’t understand affirmative action, why would you make something up and pass it off as the truth? what you just said is clearly wrong.</p>
<p>Wait, I apologize: I didn’t read your post carefully
No, you are not a URM.</p>
<p>You have a fascinating background, so that may help you.
I recall someone who had intriguing parents:
his father was a priest, his mother a nun.
THAT’S interesting.</p>
<p>If you’re a compelling storyteller, you could make something out of your parents’ background.</p>
<p>Um…</p>
<p>@Ivill…etc who said…“if you don’t understand affirmative action, why would you make something up and pass it off as the truth? what you just said is clearly wrong.”</p>
<p>I understand affirmative action (the desire to make public institutions more representative of the nation as a whole by promoting participation by underrepresented groups) Is this wrong?</p>
<p>Now the following is NOT wrong:
In the 2000 Census of Race Makeup of the United States:
Nonhispanic White: 69.1%
Asian Americans: 4.4%
Native Hawaiian: .14% (So to the OP…you are not a URM…most likely)</p>
<p>Now here’s Columbia College’s Stats:
[College</a> Search - Columbia University: Columbia College - At a Glance](<a href=“College Search - BigFuture | College Board”>College Search - BigFuture | College Board)</p>
<p>Asian/Pacific Islander: 14% (that’s 8% more then the US population…)
White/Nonhispanic: 42% (that’s a whopping 27% under the US population…)</p>
<p>So…what am I missing?</p>
<p>ehh… either way, URM status really doesn’t help as much as people think it does…</p>
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</p>
<p>Um, he should make something out of himself. You don’t get accepted because your parents are interesting (and I don’t see what’s interesting or the least bit unique about a Jewish guy marrying an Asian girl). </p>
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<p>It helps considerably. A lot of the URMs I knew would easily have been rejected had they been white/asian.</p>
<p>“Um, he should make something out of himself”</p>
<p>yes but a decent way to get there is how is parents have shaped him, they’re the 2 biggest influences in most people’s lives. URM status does help. </p>
<p>And affirmative action is not defined as the college taking exactly the proportion of races in the nation. It’s supposed to help the ‘disadvantaged’ races and those under-represented in the college. So 15% asian does not mean they like asians especially, in fact it means quite the opposite, if they had a scarcity of a certain race, affirmative action would lower admissions standards for that race. Asians are in such high numbers, simply because they’re so god dam achieving, hard working and competitive (not a bad thing at all). Colleges too, don’t primarily have these idealistic interests of a perfectly proportionate class room. They want alumni who will suceed and will make a difference bringing them fame/money, and whatever it takes to attract and educate such people.</p>
<p>You cooomppleetely contradicted yourself…wow.</p>
<p>“And affirmative action is not defined as the college taking exactly the proportion of races in the nation. It’s supposed to help the ‘disadvantaged’ races and those under-represented in the college.”</p>
<p>How can a race be “underrepresented” if you are not comparing the percentage in the college to the percentage of the nation as a whole…wow. And disadvantaged? You mean by economic standards? There are pplleeennty of really poor white people. Maybe even enough to make Columbia’s %'s better…but you never know.</p>
<p>“You cooomppleetely contradicted yourself…wow.”</p>
<p>you coooomppleetly misread and misunderstood my post … wow.</p>
<p>“How can a race be “underrepresented” if you are not comparing the percentage in the college to the percentage of the nation as a whole…wow”</p>
<p>um it can be defined in many ways, one way is according to national racial break up, others could be racial break up in the local area, racial break up in the discipline, racial break up in the applicant pool etc etc. for heaven’s sake think a little. national average is not the only yardstick. Also asians are definitely not helped along by their race. And I specifically put disadvantaged as " ‘disadvantaged’ ", because it is defined somewhat arbitrarily. there was ‘pplleeennty’ of scope for you to get that.</p>
<p>Alright fair enough, but you still contradicted yourself, :P. And tokenadult gave me a link that shows that 6.4% of “college goers” are asian. And the hispanic/african american Columbia makeup is equivalent to their national makeup. So it does appear that Columbia is using the national perentages as a guide. ANyway…my little argument with the whole thing is…if a college cuts breaks for H/AA’s to comply with affirmative action, why would they not do the same with whites/asians?</p>
<p>Edit: I’m tired…to clarify…I mean why would they not just make their whole pie chart accurate to be fair? The only disadvantaged race appears to be whites. (Last stat…the percentage of asians taking AP’s (compared to all takers) is 10%, not the 15% at Columbia).</p>
<p>because competitive applicants aren’t evenly distributed across races. you’re assuming people of different races are equally qualified, which isn’t the case for a variety of reasons. you also seem to be suggesting some sort of quota based system, which would be VERY BAD.</p>
<p>everyone familiar with admissions knows asians are at the very least slightly disadvantaged compared to whites. consider them the benchmark - urms have an advantage compared to them; orms have disadvantage.</p>
<p>“Asians are in such high numbers, simply because they’re so god dam achieving, hard working and competitive (not a bad thing at all).”</p>
<p>Why the hell, then, don’t they deserve the best?
Why do they have to work HARDER than the other races?
Or, to give the question a more bitter twist, why don’t the other races have to work as hard?</p>
<p>Sure, there’s something very wrong with grinding incessantly, having no life, and seeing everything as a means to an end, but many people of Asian descent should have what they deserve.</p>
<p>IIRC, I read a statistic that for every five seats an Asian would take up, two of those seats are taken by URMs.</p>