<p>I recently got accepted to BC. I am blonde and white but am a very small amount of Native American. So on my application, I put that I identify as Native American (not enrolled) and white, just because I knew it might give me an advantage and I don’t identify with it at all.</p>
<p>Now I am getting invited to AHANA events and feel uncomfortable. I feel like they are going to expect me to be dark skinned or something. Besides getting invited to AHANA events, is there anything that could happen where someone could look on my app and accuse me of lying? A friend told me that I am going to meet with my counselor at BC and they’re going to have my application in front of them and see that I am just a regular white girl. I mean I technically didn’t lie, but I can’t help but feel guilty.</p>
<p>you should be good, that small part of native american is true, but you shouldve put white as well. I know a kid last year who got into Stanford and he put hispanic because his dad is chilean, but if you saw him you see some big redhead white kid. the app doesnt say what you look like, but what your background is. and there arent a lot of white kids who CAN put native american.</p>
<p>First off, there are plenty of non-URMs in AHANA. Second, your first meeting with an advisor is likely to be a group meeting, so he or she won’t have files just sitting there.</p>
<p>All tribes have different requirements. My kids are card-carrying Cherokee, with only 5/256 blood. The Cherokee Nation doesn’t have a minimum requirement. My children are fair and freckle-faced, with light hair. They descend from the very first Supreme Court Justice of the Cherokee Nation, who came to Oklahoma from Georgia two years before the Trail of Tears to ready the area for the Cherokee influx. He was only 1/4 Cherokee.</p>
<p>One of my son’s friends was in a similar situation. She was admitted to Stanford last year and received invites to all of the Native American events (even though she qualified but didn’t truly identify as Native American when she was admitted). It has turned out to be the best thing possible. She has connected with the Native American community in important ways, and it turns out that she has a lot to offer. As long as you meet tribal requirements it is absolutely fine.</p>
<p>Excuse my ignorance, but isn’t the point of asking race on the application to put what you most identity with? If you never had to deal with the same struggles as an authentic/full-blooded Native American who fully identifies themselves as such, then why even put it on your app? I am 1/4 Hispanic (mom is half Cuban) and I did not put it on my application because I would not have felt good about it. I don’t speak Spanish, nor do I really identify with that part of myself. Mind you, I am black so I’m like a double-minority anyway. I am just trying to understand why people try to pass themselves off as URM on the app when they don’t “truly identify with it.” If you were not qualified to get in, then I doubt the minority status would really give you that much of a leg up.</p>
<p>Nothing wrong with wanting to get to your roots and being proud of your background, but honestly, as a minority, it annoys me that non-URMs try to pass themselves off as being URM only when they know it will benefit them. This is especially true when they never had to go through the same struggle as true minorities. When I walk down the street, everyone knows I’m not white. There is no avoiding it, and on certain instances, I have paid the price for it. Doubt you have…</p>
<p>"If you were not qualified to get in, then I doubt the minority status would really give you that much of a leg up."</p>
<p>“It annoys me that non-URMs try to pass themselves off as being URM only when they know it will benefit them.”</p>
<p>Which is it? Does it not give you a “leg up” in admissions at highly competitive schools like BC or does it, in fact, “benefit” URMs. I think we all know the answer.</p>
<p>The reason the OP put down that he/she is Native American was because he/she knew it would help with admission. Apparently it worked and now the OP is having regrets, either out of guilt or the realization that BC might expect him/her to actually be Native American.</p>
<p>I think the real question here should be why does BC (or any school) ask your ethnic status at all, particularly in a world that is increasingly multi-racial. </p>
<p>We’ve all heard the stories of the children of highly-educated, well-to-do “URMs” who are offered admission to highly competitive schools over other more “qualified” candidates who can’t (or don’t) identify themselves as URMs. I don’t see the sense in that. </p>
<p>If you’re going to give preference to anyone, shouldn’t it be based on something more like what challenges they actually overcame? </p>
<p>So wouldn’t it make more sense to offer an advantage to the ORM student (“over-represented majority”) from meager means or challenging personal circumstances who excelled beyond “normal” expectations than simply based on what box they checked under “Ethnicity”?</p>
<p>It is the system that prefers skin color over character content in admissions processes that leads a student who is a “very small amount of Native American” to identify him/herself as such.</p>