<p>I know, judging from the conversations I've been reading using the search option that I'm potentially opening a can of worms here, but how much of an effect does the URM status have when it comes to admissions? </p>
<p>Basically, I'm a Puerto Rican, 3.8 GPA in Psychology at the University of Puerto Rico and pretty good extra curriculars (held positions at major political campaigns, lots of activity within a service fraternity, honor student and written a thesis, candidate to the Truman Scholarship, etc.). I don't have an LSAT score yet, I'm studying to take it this September. I'm transgendered and have been very active in LGBT groups and political campaigns in Puerto Rico. </p>
<p>While reading and also trying to analyze roughly what type of LSAT score would I need for the HYS combo, I keep wondering exactly how much of a factor does URM have?</p>
<p>It’s probably better to approach it from the other direction: get a rough LSAT and then figure out what schools you should aim for. URM boost will come into play there, as well.</p>
<p>You have to understand that different URM get different boosts. Blacks generally get the biggest boost (and I mean, it’s so big that you can’t even compare it to the boost that other minorities get), then probably Native Americans, then Mexicans/Puerto Ricans. Other Hispanics (esp. Cubans and South Americans) don’t get a boost at all, esp. if they come from affluent backgrounds. My older sister applied to law school two years ago, she went to Berkeley for undergrad, graduated with a 3.8 and had a 165 LSAT (whereas an AA would probably get into Harvard or Columbia, at least according to lawschoolnumbers) anyway, she didn’t get into any of the T-14. She went to BC Law for a year and then transferred to GULC. We’re Chileans btw and both of our parents went to college.</p>
<p>When it comes to the LSAT, I basically visited Borders, and bought off the Princeton Review test books, which was recommended by me by a few friends (sadly I know of no one down here who’s taken the LSAT. All my friends have taken the MCAT instead). The PowerScore Bibles, I cannot find those down here, so I’m right now resorting into having them shipped here. </p>
<p>My first project, was basically, to carry out an experiment. Make a very dry run by taking a sample test, timed, without ANY prior study. Not even reading much of the introduction of that Princeton Review book. . Basically, I tried to recreate what would it look like if I just showed up in there fresh as a lettuce without any preparation. The results were not pretty, to say the least. It came out at 145. I was in the 99th percentile of my SAT and I always get good grades, so while I’m not going to make bets on getting 170 plus scores, I know I can get MUCH more than 145. </p>
<p>So, for the moment, I’ve been reading and studying those books (even found a boring DVD about it, which had some neat advice here and there) reading about the LSAT, and while not having yet sat down for the three hours to try to do another test run, I have been looking at questions in sample tests and reading them a bit to try to familiarize myself a bit with the type of question, and also see where I failed in that prior run. The only section at this instant that has me rather worried right now is the Games part (really really bad at math, what kept me with high grades in high school was that my other courses would act as padding for the crashed grades I’d get in math, same thing in SAT), so I guess I have to work on that somewhat.</p>
<p>URM boost is huge. But don’t take advantage of it. Do the best that you can; when you are deciding what law schools to apply to, use the 25th percentiles to guide the sorts of applications you should be sending out.</p>
<p>Interesting. I wasn’t fully aware that it varied from URM to URM the effect of it. A question, though I’m not sure if I should make a new thread: How involved is the admissions process? </p>
<p>You see, since theoretically, I could graduate in three and a half years, but on the other hand its not worth it to graduate three months early, I’m considering taking that final senior semester on exchange to Europe (most probably Spain). I doubt I could use it on my application since by then I’ll probably be getting letters of rejection and admission, but there’s still the question of how wise is it to go out of the country at the same time that you are having to go through the admissions process.</p>
<p>Your applications will be submitted during September if you’re wise, so that’s not the problem. It will prohibit you from visiting schools during selection season, though, which might be a problem.</p>
<p>Questionable implies the possibility that no boost exists. This is definitely not the case for latinos (I’ll refer you to my former classmate, who got into Mich with a 161… and who most definitely did not check off the “african american” check box).</p>
<p>“Questionable implies the possibility that no boost exists. This is definitely not the case for latinos (I’ll refer you to my former classmate, who got into Mich with a 161… and who most definitely did not check off the “african american” check box).”</p>
<p>Which is true. Latino is anything from Brazilian, Spanish and Portuguese (from Europe) to Puerto Rican. The only “disadvantaged” groups in America are Mexicans and Puerto Ricans. LSAC asks you specifically are you Mexican-American/Chicano or Puerto Rican, they have another category for Hispanic. As I have said, these two groups, because of their history in this country are given a boost (not as much as AAs). The rest of the latino groups are not given a boost, if you go lawschoolnumbers, you’ll see that mostly Chicanos from CA are given this boost and Cubans from Miami (well-off) and South Americans (another group that is relatively well-off) or Spaniards are not given a boost.</p>
<p>Hmm… an effect you will also see influencing this, is the fact that URM status, as you should remember, only falls on residents, not on international students. So, with Puerto Ricans being the major exception, nearly all the people who would get a URM status, will be immigrants. The detail, is, most of the immigrants coming in from Europe, the south cone, etc. are pretty well off people. They are not the extreme poverty you often see in Mexican immigration, and in traditional Puerto Rican immigration to the mainland. </p>
<p>Cuban immigration, traditionally was politically motivated instead of economic, basically, all the political and financial elite who fled in 1959 from one side of Havana while Fidel was entering through the other side.</p>
<p>Now, if all this is the case, you may see the Hispanic side effects of URM changing eventually since a) These days the more recent Cuban immigrants are predominantly very poor, you know, the ones showing up on rafts with just their clothes on, and b) We are having a large influx also of immigration from the smaller Central American countries, not just Mexico. Indeed, in Miami, they are now the majority of the hispanics, not the Cubans. </p>
<p>So you might see within the next couple of decades the universities starting to consider URMs on those particular groups.</p>
<p>Chicanos are Mexican-Americans and Puerto-Ricans are American, the only two categories of “Hispanic” that fall under URM. An international student from Argentina or from Spain, will firstly be extremely well-off and two will not fall under the “disadvantaged” categories. International students applying to law school have are looked at completely different, they have TOEFL scores to show, international transcripts, etc, so to answer your question, in my experience knowing “latino” international applicants, they are treated any differently than a white applicant.</p>
<p>What about an international student applying from Mexico/Puerto Rico/Nigeria, etc.? The question isn’t one of Spaniards, since a Spaniard who’s coming straight from Spain gets exactly the same advantage as one who was born in the US: none.</p>
<p>But my impression was that students applying directly from, say, Ghana, would receive consideration equivalent to that of an African American.</p>
<p>There is no “international student” from Puerto Rico. Puerto Ricans from mainland and from the island are both American citizens and so they receive the URM treatment regardless of where they come from (San Juan or Brooklyn). A Mexican international student from Monterrey is not treated the same as a first-generation Chicano from East L.A. The complexity of race/ethnicity/class all play a part in how Latinos are treated in law school admissions. The rule of thumb is that if you’re neither Mexican-American or Puerto Rican, you don’t really matter (outside of these two groups we don’t have organizations like La Raza, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund or the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund fighting for “our” representation). </p>
<p>With Africans and African Americans…I can’t say really, I don’t know.</p>
<p>there has been recent changes on the LSAC website as far as cagtegorizing students by ehtnicity.</p>
<p>Hispanic/Latino iss now broken down as follows:</p>
<p>Central American
Chicano/Mexican
Cuban
Other Hispanic/
Latino South American </p>
<p>Puerto Rican is now a separate category</p>
<p>Asian is now broken down as follows:
Cambodian
Chinese
Filipino
Indian
Japanese
Korean
Malaysian
Other Asian
Pakistani
Thai
Vietnamese </p>
<p>I would expect in the future that AA woudl be broken down as carribean americans, Africans and African Americans with multi-generational roots in the US (since this group has the most underrepresented number of blacks in college/professional school).</p>
<p>wahoomb: my apologies for overlooking the fact that Puerto Rico is… you know, part of the US. I have no idea what I was thinking.</p>
<p>It’ll be interesting to see how AA plays out for students directly from Mexico/Africa. I’m not totally sure myself, but I have always assumed they would receive the same AA practices that others did. I have no data to support this thought, though.</p>