Beyond Black and Hispanic, what cultural or ethnic or racial factors are considered (helped by) falling into the Less Represented Minority or People? I’m wondering about for example: Turkish, Pakistani, West Indies (but with a more Indian heritage), etc. I know being Asian is not usually a less represent minority to make college admissions any easier.
Also how about religion? Does being Muslim, Hindu, or any other non-Christian religion help in college admissions? I would think it would add some diversity-right?
Perhaps now (2018) with all the travel ban issues, it is a more beneficial status, assuming you are already here and/or are a USA citizen.
True, but diversity is not a hook. Being trans adds diversity, but it is also not a hook.
Unless prohibited by law, a college can make its own determination of what is a URM and how much of a bump, if any, it will play in the admissions process. Common definitions include African-American, Hispanic/Latin@, Native American/Alaskan/Hawaiian. Turkish/Pakistani, etc. do not make the cut, in general.
@skieurope has listed the common urm groups that are attractive to many institutions looking to improve outcomes for traditionally underserved students.
Pacific Islander is one. It’s a bit broader than simply Hawaiian. And Hawaiian means native Hawaiians not residents of Hawaii which would include all other ethnicities.
How categories expand depends very much on the college and its current demographics. And then its wants. For a while college x realized it had few Southeast Asians. Yes, it’s possible a Muslim stands out, but not simply for being Muslim. And there are many highly qualified Muslim, Turkish and Pakistani applicants to US colleges.
But any fine distinctions are something that’s going to routinely shift and be impossible to predict. Imo, you risk over-thinking this and how it might help you. And any individual needs to be qualified for the particular college.
The definitions of the different categories tend to lean hard on the Census. So this, fyi:
According to OMB, “Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands. The Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander population includes people who marked the “Native Hawaiian” checkbox, the “Guamanian or Chamorro” checkbox, the “Samoan” checkbox, or the “Other Pacific Islander” checkbox. It also includes people who reported entries such as Pacific Islander; Polynesian entries, such as Tahitian, Tongan, and Tokelauan; Micronesian entries, such as Marshallese, Palauan, and Chuukese; and Melanesian entries, such as Fijian, Guinean, and Solomon Islander.
A favorable URM factor is typically applied to african american, Hispanic Ammerican and native american (including Alaskan and Hawaiin. Many also apply it to women for engineering. One thing to understand is that URM consideration is generally inapplicable to international applicants. At least that has been true with every college I have familiarity with. You mention religion. That might be a consideration for some private church owned colleges but most universities never consider one’s religion as a factor (that is one set of discrimiation lawsuits they never want to deal with)
As I said, my definition is one; but a college may add or delete as it sees fit. So one college may include Samoans/Fijians/Tongans,etc on its list, while another may limit latin@ to Puerto Ricans on the mainland and to those of Mexican descent. https://www.aamc.org/download/54278/data/urm.pdf
Bottom line - it varies.
More to the point - it is what it is. If the OP is not in that college’s definition of URM, then s/he’s not a URM. There is no check box on the application that says “Check here if you are URM.” You list your race/ethnicity (if you choose) and the college will use that info as it sees fit. Each college, where not prohibited by law, will decide what is URM and also decide how much of a bump, if any, this will give an application.