It would surprise me. There’s a difference, in my mind, between desiring to increase diversity and calling something a hook. Just think, if it were a hook, every applicant would suddenly be LGBTQ. Not that I’m being cynical or anything. 
Anything including LGBTQA+ description that can help diverse a community and reflect the population at large may be considered a hook, if the school is looking to ensure it has at least one (several) of everything.
@roethlisburger i agree that the plural of anecdote is not data and that all I have are anecdotes and testimonials. But those who argue that being URM is a hook haven’t shared anecdotes or data, just a notion that has become conventional wisdom, perhaps based on the assumption that college admissions and boarding school admissions are the same. Where is the data?
Are there any URMs here who think being URM is a significant hook? Or is the “URM as hook” mostly an idea held by those who aren’t? That seems to be my impression.
Someone posted the percentage of latinos at some of the Hades schools a while back, and the numbers were dismal, even at the schools that have achieved greater diversity. And yet, they rejected or waitlisted highly qualified latinos (including a nationally-ranked Mathlete who wrote his first novel in 6th grade.)
Boarding schools frequently have multicultural recruitment officers in their admissions offices. They also actively recruit from programs and schools that feed students of color to them. They also quote diversity statistics. Those factors, just to name a few off the top of my head, combined with years of anecdotal evidence leave no doubt in my head that it is a hook, although not as large as some people think it is.
@doschicos: That speaks to their efforts to get more kids of color to apply, not to an admissions advantage. (And we honestly don’t know how it compares to their recruiting efforts in affluent areas, their participation in boarding school fairs attended by mostly White families, or the time they spend cultivating top day schools, JBS, or kids in tonier school districts.) You are correct that nearly all of them have an AO dedicated to “diversity”, but they also have 7-15 other full and part time staff members that aren’t.
The big Q: Why are the numbers still so dismal at so many schools? If changing those numbers were a high priority, qualified URMs should be in very high demand and have competing offers of admissions. Most of the kids here who scored multiple admissions weren’t URM. That leads me to suspect there are other criteria that are more important than test scores, grades, and URM status. (Though I do realize that the CC crowd is not representative.)
@CaliMex, I agree. I wonder why there are still so few URM’s at all of these schools when they have had Diversity recruitment officers for several years now. If they were really committed, then like you stated, all highly qualified URM would have multiple admission offers. I imagine it would look like the students who are admitted to all of the Ivy’s. I don’t think my child is an abnormality. I have read on this forum of many URM’s that were waitlisted and/or rejected at most schools. I assumed wrongly that being an URM would bolster my son’s already strong application. We needed some FA so I didn’t expect admission everywhere but I definitely did not expect admission at almost nowhere since he supposedly had hooks(URM, Under represented state). His UR status did not help him at all. Maybe needing FA over rules any supposedly hooks.
The schools still seeling to increase their percentage of minorities are admitting a kid into their community, not a folder of stats and a check mark for another race. They have to like the kid and think he or she will be successful in order to admit them. If all of the academics are there and the kid wasn’t admitted then the school didn’t like them or didn’t feel strongly about their prospects for success. They aren’t going to admit a kid just to beef up their diversity percentage.
Many of the top schools have already reached the percentage of diversity they wish. At those schools, the minority applicant faces the same challenge as every other applicant - the school has to like you more than a kid who is just like you in almost every way.
@queenmother - if you don’t mind me asking, which URM is your son?
Her avatar is a Black Queen. Is that a hint? Or am I reading too much into a profile pic?
@CaliMex is correct. My son is African American. @Korab1 I think that is the point we are trying to make. Being an URM is not a magic bullet for Admission. URM’s are judged by the same standards as all other applicants. They have to jump over the same hurdles as every other applicant. Some seem to suggest that the hurdles have been removed making it easier because of the UR status. I am not sure that is entirely true. As you stated, the schools have already reached the percentage of diversity they wish. URM is not a hook. Maybe it used to be but it does not appear to be now.
There are still schools where people of color represent less than 20 percent of the student body…
I agree @queenmother. We thought it would be a slight advantage to strengthen my DS’ already strong application. But it was not…I don’t think it is quite the hook it once was nor what others may think it still is (who are not URM). And I would hate any prospective students to falsely think that it is. Or to think there is more weight placed on the URM status than there actually is. I think bottom line - kids should be the best them they can be…and never who they are not…and hope that is the fit at least one school is looking for
@CaliMex Why is it necessary to have more minorities in a study body than are representative of the population?
@queenmother “URM’s are judged by the same standards as all other applicants. They have to jump over the same hurdles as every other applicant.” Wrong. In fact --it is willfully naive to think that this is the case.
@queenmother - Thanks for that information. I’m going to try to get some data together on URM and see if I can’t post them in some organized way. You can get a lot of the data at: https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pss/privateschoolsearch/ and you can see the overall statistics for high school students in the US here: https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372 .
Just quickly eyeballing the general data and a few of the GLADCHEMM school specific data, it would appear that at least relative to school age population, Blacks are slightly underrepresented, Whites are somewhat overrrepresented, Asians are massively overrepresented (by a factor of more than 4) and Hispanics are massively underrepresented (by a factor of more than 4).
I’ll try to post some data later, and in the meantime if anyone has done a similar analysis I for one would love to see it.
I’m sorry to those of you who did not achieve the results you hoped for but it really is a hook, albeit not as much as some think. But not a non-hook, either.
Schools are targeting a certain enrollment that doesn’t seem to vary more than a couple percentiles from year to year - percentage legacies, percentage AA, percentage latino/hispanic, etc. They aren’t going to go from 10% AA to 20% AA in a given year, for example. But guess what? For a variety of reasons they do get fewer applicants that are URMs so your odds are greater than if you are applying as an Asian or a caucasian, all things being equal. For a variety of reasons, boarding schools do see less applicants from qualified applicants to fit the URM buckets.
The boarding schools, at least the top ones, do have an easier time these days receiving applicants from all corners. Some of that is due to concentrated effort on their part to seek out these students. Some of it is due to the internet and easier access to information from all corners of the country - and even the globe. Some of it is due to increased focus on and competition in the college game and everyone looking for an edge. Some of it is due to declining educational standards in some areas of the country so people are looking for alternatives. Even books, movies, and tv shows have contributed to increased interest in boarding schools.
@queenmother you need to draw a distinction between two sets of schools. In the first set, the schools are looking to increase their number of minority students. For those schools, being a minority is clearly a hook, as it it makes a child more attractive to the school. You have something they are in need of. If you apply to one of these schools, are clearly academically qualified, and are not admitted, it is fair to conclude that the school did not like you/did not feel you would be successful at the school and/or did not feel that you would positively influence the student body in some way.
In the second set of schools, they have reached the percentage of minorities they set out to achieve. At these schools, I would argue that race is NOT a hook - your race does not make you more attractive to that school, you are just one of many applicants - you go in your race’s bucket, and the schools make their picks to fulfill their desired percentages of the respective races.
Within that race bucket, however, their could be certain qualities of applicants that are more sought after than others. In the african american bucket, does the school want more Fresh Princes and less Carlton Fisks? In the caucasian bucket do they want more Jed Clampetts and less Vanilla Ices?
In your post # 16 you state:
The first question I have is which set of schools are these “highly qualified” students applying to? If its the second set of schools I identify above, then it’s clear that schools found other african-american candidates more attractive.
If the schools are in the first set of schools I identify above, then obviously the schools didn’t view them to be as highly qualified as you believe them to be. The more schools such a child is rejected from, the more likely the conclusion is that the child just isn’t a great candidate for the level of boarding school issuing the rejections, as it isn’t just one school’s opinion, but many. Either that, or the schools aren’t being honest about wanting to increase minority representation, which means they aren’t in group 1, but are really members of group 2, in which case re-read my statement about group 2 schools.
Latinos seem grossly under-represented even at schools that are now 40-45% people of color. Which is why I would have assumed that a nationally ranked Latino Mathlete who wrote novels on the side would have been a shoe in …
Ok, @Korab1, you lost me with the reference to a white Red Sox player from the 70s and 80s who is from NH. Can you enlighten me on the Pudge reference? Inquiring minds want to know…