<p>For me it's a conflict of interests. Where I want to go vs. Where my parents want me to go vs. Which schools are most likely to give me substantial amounts of aid (Harvard kind of falls into the last category--or at least it did before I applied. I guess I'm a part of that surge of people hoping to benefit fromt the new fin. aid program who liked the school enough to bother applying. But then I grew to love all of the schools I applied to, despite my reasons for applying to some of them.)</p>
<p>Besides, what's the point in collecting acceptances? No one will care where you got in; it's where you go that counts. And even THAT can be disputed.</p>
<p>Byerly: with regards to internationals receiving likely letters - they do. i don't know how many, or which schools in particular, but two of my international friends received Cornell likely letters, while another international friend received a Yale likely letter (this was for last year's admissions, though). each friend came from a different country (and all different continents, too), so i don't think it's limited to any specific countries either.</p>
<p>Particularly if their hook is academic rather than athletic: ie, field hockey players from the Netherlands, ice hockey players from Canada, lacrosse players from Australia, soccer players from Brazil, baseball players from the Dominican Republic, basketball players from Croatia, etc., etc.</p>
<p>I didn't get a likely letter from Yale (URM) and I must say that I got rather panicked about it for about a period of two weeks (I did wind up Class of 2008, though). I did get likelies from both Dartmouth and Cornell, however.</p>
<p>They're under-represented in the sense that these students represent relatively low percentages (sometimes even sub-10%) of the student bodies of some--many--colleges.</p>
<p>The usual measure is the group's share of the student body relative to its fraction of the population in the state or nation.</p>
<p>Asians are usually over-represented in the student body at most elites relative to their fraction of the population. Thus, they are not an "UNDER-Represented Minority.</p>
<p>MIT...i dont think you can access the admit site mainly because you havent received an official decision....</p>
<p>..don't worry about interrupting the URM thing....i was just trying to clear something up..not trying to throw off the 9 page thread we have going on here.</p>