U stands for UNDER-represented. O stands for OVER-represented. Does that help?
URM is a boost, ORM is a drawaback, but URM status alone is not enough.
@CaliMex I was asking if middle eastern is considered urm since i’m not sure what it’s considered…
While every school can use its own parameters for URM, in general Middle Eastern is not URM.
Since everyone seems to have very mixed ideas about whether being a URM is a good hook, I’ll share the story of a good friend of mine:
She applied to Exeter as a URM (she’s Latina) with FP, and a brother already attending Exeter. She was more than qualified in terms of grades (5.0 GPA), ECs, community service, SSAT scores (98th percentile), and essays. Plus, she’s an award-winning dance champ in our county.
She was WL’ed.
Middle Eastern isn’t URM, since the Middle East is technically in Asia and Asians are ORMs generally.
@monica20 At least your friend was waitlisted.
Everybody on this forum seems to talk about “URM” as if it is a single category. I don’t think that is how boarding schools look at it (and I am sure that that is not how colleges look at it).
My personal opinion is that schools find it useful to categorize students by race, not necessarily ethnicity. Schools are looking for non-white students, those who will be readily identifiable in viewbooks and marketing materials. Black, non-Caucasian Hispanic and visibly Native American are “hooks” imo. (There are plenty of high achieving non white Asians and Indians so no need to make any allowances there). The rest, even if technically URM, not so much. Just my opinion, but I think looking at the issue this way might be helpful for applicants.
I see your point @SatchelSF
Not all EC’s are created equal: being an “award winning dance champ” is not something that will generally be all that compelling to Exeter and most top schools. These schools want students who will participate on teams that will in turn compete for the school. Athletics have a long long history of being a very important component of the liberal arts and renaissance person.
If it were that much of a hook, minorities wouldn’t be UNDER-represented at so many boarding schools and qualified URMs would be admitted everywhere.
(Why do I get the impression that those who think URM is a hook or boost tend to be White… or haven’t yet applied to BS?)
@CaliMex I noticed that on a lot of the past chance me posts op are mostly either white or asian which I think sort of represents that application pool in the sense,I don’t think a lot of urm apply to boarding school in general hence them being urm.
@Center while the only EC I mentioned was dance, she still had others that are generally valuable to AOs. She was an NJHS officer, participated in many community service projects out of school (she even started a few of her own!), was in student council at the time of her application, held a position at her church youth group, and was a member of the school math team. Pretty much, she did most of the ECs I did. Plus, Exeter seemed quite into her interests in performing arts and she even met with faculty involved with Exeter’s theater program.
Well a lot of people say on the forums that lots of qualified applicants get rejected or waitlisted ,urm’s aren’t impervious to this phenomenon after all. @monica20
There are several URM here on CC who were rejected or waitlisted at numerous schools despite being highly qualified.
While she was WL’ed, it still wasn’t the outright acceptance everyone expected she’d get with all of her stats and her status as a FP URM legacy. On the other hand, I (by some miracle) got in as a full FA ORM non-legacy with quite underwhelming stats compared to hers, imo. Moral of the story: you never know with these AOs. They have their own reasons for choosing who they choose.
@CottonCandyTrill 100% agreed.
If I were a “u”, I would be asking “how comfortable will I be at xyz school”?
@monica20 Don’t sell yourself short. You had amazing stats and accomplishments. But also you had a huge hook in that you were a JkCF Scholar, and one that had to make no apologies for her academics, which were legitimately right at the top of the scale for any school. Congratulations on your success you deserved it. But it comes as no surprise to me (if you remember your original chance thread I was the only poster who said you had a 90% chance of getting accepted at Andover or Exeter and 80% chance of both).
Your friend’s results are a little surprising. Would you feel comfortable telling us what her racial background is? Latina is a very broad term, and I think there is a huge difference in schools’ considerations of, say, European background Cuban or Argentinean versus, say, indigenous background Guatemalan or Peruvian or black heritage Dominican or Puerto Rican, although all could be labeled Latina. Latin America is an extremely segregated place for the most part, and in many of the countries there are levels of discrimination against blacks and mestizos that we couldn’t even imagine in the US. I would think schools are very aware of this, and so I would not be surprised to hear that your friend is Caucasian just from the FP aspect of her application alone (hard to imagine otherwise given the road blocks thrown up against non-whites in Latin America, although of course there are always exceptions). I couldn’t imagine a non-white Hispanic not getting in with those stats but I am willing to be proven wrong here.
BTW, I’m part Puerto Rican and married to a 100% Cuban who was born and raised in Latin America.