<p>But remember, the answer (still) really is, “it depends” on the college.</p>
<p>Even when there is some unspecified preference at a given college for being a URM applicant, it is best not to overestimate it, unless there is some actual statement indicating the magnitude of the preference*. Make your safety list without considering this factor (note that safeties must be affordable, so check the cost and financial aid estimates). Schools in your match and reach lists which consider ethnicity may give you a bit better chances than otherwise, but a match is not likely to become a safety, and a reach is not likely to become a match.</p>
<p>*There are lots of state universities that just admit by formula; many of these do not consider ethnicity at all. If any do, then you may be able to see how much it enters into the formula that those schools.</p>
<p>Which numbers? I am going by the National Achievement Scholar and National Hispanic Scholar numbers. I believe there are about 3,000 of these each year. Assuming that there are possibly another 3,000 URMs with similar merit who who did not take the NMQT or who took the ACT/ PLAN, my guess is there are a total of about 6,000 well qualified URMs each year. Each top 20 school + top 10 LAC picks about 100 each or the top 3,000. Some of them for economic diversity (poor schools) some for their scores. What is your estimate? Thanks.</p>
<p>You can become a National Achievement semifinalist with a PSAT score under 200. My son didn’t make semifinalist but was reognized as being in the top 3% with a PSAT score that didn’t even break 180. His SAT scores (very sub 2000) still put him in the top 10% of African-American test takers. So yes, the number of high scoring African American students is very small. The latest numbers I found are from 2006 which have 976 African-Amercan students scoring 700 or above on the math portion and 1117 scoring 700 or above on the cr portion.</p>
<p>That is about 2,200. Half will not have high W & CR/ are not 99 percentile, so about 1100 with good SAT stats. Twice that many with ACT equivalent scores, brings us back to 2,200 AA with good SAT or ACT stats. Twice that many Hispanics have top stats, bringing the total URM pop. with top stats to about 6,000 which is what I was saying. Divide them over the top 30 uni & LAC with an average of 100 URM each, half will get in half will not. So, which half gets in? I would think it is those with the super high stats and those with low stats with disadvantaged backgrounds in this group.</p>
<p>If universities really were interested in attracting diverse “races” quotes used because race is too difficult to define), why aren’t Native Americans more actively recruited ??</p>
<p>You asked “*How much does being URM help at top colleges?What (in your humble opinions) do you suppose is the academic profile of accepted URMs at top 10 ranked colleges”</p>
<p>I think a good place for black students who find themselves on cc ( NOT a random sample) are the real results threads on the AA students subforum. A lot of good but not superstar kids are feeling pretty good about schools well below the top 20.</p>
<p>"why aren’t Native Americans more actively recruited ?? "</p>
<p>gobluejays: where do you see that they aren’t? The hard fact is very few applicants come from this subgroup. Show me a top performing NA and I guarantee you, he/she will be highly coveted by almost any college.</p>
<p>@T26E4 I don’t think a top-performing Native American would be THAT special, comparatively speaking. I’m sure there are plenty of other hooked applicants who could equally contest for enrollment.</p>
<p>All I know is that even the tippy top schools have NA enrollments around 1-2%. That tells me that the NA sub group is pretty small. NA in general have the lowest HS graduation rate in the country. The rate of poverty is among the highest and enrollment and eventual graduation from 4 yr colleges is among the lowest.</p>
<p>I happen to be a card-carrying member, so I do understand where you’re coming from, but I happen to think otherwise because of how scoring distributions for Indians actually work. It seems that, at least of everyone I’ve known in my state, Native American scores follow a reverse bell curve. At one end, you have people living in more rural (often smaller and more underfunded) school districts who simply aren’t around the community or competition it takes to actually push for higher scores, grades, etc. At the other, you have the offspring of people who moved from rural districts simply because of how under-performing those districts were-- people who aren’t necessarily wealthy but are typically more academically-inclined or who happen to live in districts that are more academically-inclined. While it’s not significant enough to actually construe a remotely top-heavy scoring tendency away from reservations, I would argue that those admitted to top-level universities are more from the latter areas, those perhaps more distant from typical enrollment issues or poverty.</p>
<p>T26E4 , you just said that a child of illegal immigrants from Mexico should be a valuable asset, so why not so with Native Americans ? They’re legal, and much more. Their people have been in this country longer than any other ethnic group, minority or majority.And there are reasons no one would dispute for more active recruitment. Why do they have to be "top performing "when the illegals don’t ?? Or the inner city kids ? I’m only pointing out a weakness in “the tippy top schools” arguments.Even if the graduation rate of native americans is low, why aren’t the ones who do graduate at those the tippy top schools ? Why only 2% ? Why aren’t the tippy tops more interested ? This is a flaw in yours and the tippy tops’ argument. This represents unequal treatment of different under-represented minorities. And what does the rate of Native Americans graduating from said tippy top have to do with it? Are you implying that the NA are not as valuable an asset as the Mexicans or inner city kids to those tippy tops ?</p>
<p>I think top schools have to be careful to only admit students who can handle the course work, regardless of the group affiliations. Straight A students from these community schools are not necessarily prepared for the academic rigors/ competition at these top schools. Hence, kids can wind up spending too much time doing remedial work to keep up with regular classes. This is what almost happend to my son when he came to a regular high school. In the first semester he had C grades in mathematics and Computer Science, even though he was one of the best students at his old school, who had taken nearly a dozen high school courses in middle school. Still there were gaps in his knowledge. We can tell because a 320 in math is not what one should score on the SAT in 7th grade as a top student. He was about 100 points below the national average for his age. Consequently, he had to do an indepth review of his elementary and middle school education at the same time keep up with really hard regular high school class work. It was brutal.</p>
<p>The bottom line is these schools are akin to a 3 month finishing school for climbing mount everest. If one gets in, one still has to climb mount everest within 3 months to graduate.If one is not physically ready to do it in three months one should not attend.</p>
<p>@GoBlueJays: If you read my discussion about NA recruitment, I said nothing about their relative “worth” to top colleges. NA applicants are extremely valued. It’s just that the numbers are so few — which makes NAs even more valued. It’s not A versus B whatsoever. It’s about numbers, friend.</p>
<p>And my discussion about graduation rates pertains to HS, not of NA or other URM collegians at the top schools whatsoever. My discussion about the relatively more stressed backgrounds of NA high schoolers is one of the reasons why, when a qualified NA applicant comes along – they are highly coveted. Plz read my post again.</p>
<p>Take another look at those College Board numbers for (for example) African-Americans. Even if you can stretch them to say that there are 2000 African-Americans with top SAT scores, many of those students will not even apply to the most competitive colleges–some of them will go to state flagships, or HBCs, or schools where they can get merit awards. It’s only on CC that people who have the stats for Harvard automatically apply to Harvard. The point is that URMs with high stats are in short supply. I’m sure it’s true that the “diamond in the rough” from a poor family and a crummy high school is in particularly great demand, but the black kid from Exeter with a 2020 SAT will still allow a selective school to increase its number of URM kids by a bit, and that’s something those schools clearly want to do.</p>