<p>theres a girl in my school whos spanish (from spain) but she keeps bragging that shes gonna get in Harvard b/c she can say shes hispanic. but shes not; shes just white. it annoys me as hell...is she gonna get away with it?</p>
<p>She's not lying. Hispanic is a strange system. It means "Spanish speaker" so, whites from countries such as Argentina and Spain can mark it down.</p>
<p>really? but she was born in the states. plus if it's really "spanish speaker" couldnt anyone that speaks it fluently mark that down?</p>
<p>She is Hispanic. "Hispanic" is NOT a racial term; it merely refers to people from Spain, Latin America, and Spanish-speaking South American countries.</p>
<p>Hispanic is an ethnicity referring to where a person or their ancestors were born. A Hispanic person can be of any race.</p>
<p>Any person, however, who thinks that being a certain race gives them an automatic "in" to Harvard is sadly mistaken.</p>
<p>One of my best friend's dad is from Spain so he put down he was hispanic. He has gotten scholarships to schools I would consider a reach for me yet he has lower stats and less leadership positions than I do. I joke about it all the time with him but it really bugs me too. He's just as white as I am yet because he is from an area 30 miles south of where I'm from, he gets into a lot of very good schools. </p>
<p>However, there is nothing we can do about it. Everyone else on here was right, hispanic just means spanish-speaking country.</p>
<p>you just have to deal with it, affirmative action isn't fair</p>
<p>On most applications, you are required to specify which country/region you're from if you put down "Hispanic". The admissions officers will notice that she is of Spanish descent and not classify her as a URM. They may even penalize her because they realize she is trying to play the system. (At least that is what I hope!)</p>
<p>white hispanics FTW</p>
<p>I know a guy who's white and his grandmother immgrated from Portugal, so he marked 'white' and 'other' and then wrote in Portuguese. How do you feel about that?</p>
<p>Does race reallly matter?</p>
<p>of course it matters</p>
<p>eww i dont like that system. she barely speaks spanish...shes just learning it in high school like all the rest of us</p>
<p>If you care that much, you can tell the admissions office. That's what I would do if I knew someone was lying about activities or other difficult-to-verify information. This isn't any different. Of course, it would have to be pretty flagrant for me to report it. I don't think I would report someone of Spanish descent who put Hispanic. But I might email admissions and ask them innocently, "If you are Spanish do you put down Hispanic? One of my friends is doing that on his/her application and I was wondering if that is acceptable."</p>
<p>harvard2727,
I strrongly suggest that you worry about your own life. The girl is Hispanic -- Spanish. Yes, she can accurately put down "Hispanic." Whether she can speak Spanish is not the point.</p>
<p>Whether colleges want that kind of Hispanic is their business. </p>
<p>Her thinking that she'll be accepted to Harvard automatically because she's from Spain and is Hispanic is delusional. It would be delusional, too, if she were of Puerto Rican or Mexican ancestry (the most desired Hispanics by collee since they are the most prevalent in the U.S.). No one is guaranteed admission to Harvard. Her delusion; her problem, not yours.</p>
<p>So, as we used to say in the Stone Ages when I was young: Mind your own bees wax. Surely, you have more productive things to do with your time than worrying about someone else's college application.</p>
<p>She's technically hispanic, but everybody knows that colleges mean latino when they ask that. Hispanics from Spain are white. Period. That's ridiculous.</p>
<p>The termonology is flawed.
Spain = european
While Hispanic does encompass Spaniards, it's on nothing more than a technicality. Spaniards are no more URMS than Italians or Germans. </p>
<p>The real irony is that because the Spanish brutallty conquered so many latin/central american cultures, the spaniards become the "disadvantaged" solely by this technicality of association.</p>
<p>lol...good comparison, vertigofrog...</p>
<p>Yeah...it isn't fair, but then again, many aspects of affirmative action aren't fair. You can't blame your friend for trying to take advantage of the system. Competition is fierce. I'd do the same thing if I were in that position...</p>
<p>FYI,
The section isn't labeled "URM Section ONLY".</p>
<p>Those descendents of Spaniards are Hispanic. The applicant must specify a country, giving the adcoms a better idea of what kind of Hispanic they are. From there, it is totally up to the admissions committee. </p>
<p>From my point of view, it just looks like all of you are jealous because someone can seemingly claim (from the majority of ya'lls eyes) URM status when they look exactly like you do. The colleges know what they are doing, so just let them do their job without ostracizing classmates because they were born into a particular family (which they themselves had no control over).</p>
<p>As much as I disagree with some of Stephen J Gould's flights of socialist fantasy, I really liked his debunking of false reifications in "The Mismeasure of Man" (which, ironically, may be his most flawed book). "Race" is a spectacularly useless reification and I still vacillate between being amused, depressed, and confused by its prominence in human thought. </p>
<p>In no particular order, my great-grandmother was Cherokee. Another great-grandfather was off the boat from Scotland. My wife had a g-g-grandparent who was Jewish from Spain. Given that 300 years of part of my family history was in the poorer parts of the South, I would not be surprised to find that I had African ancestors (of course, we all have African ancestors -- I wonder if admissions committees would consider that?). Why check a "race" box at all? I guess it's just easier for schools to ask "race" than do the extra work necessary to have what they are really looking for -- a culturally mixed, interesting student body. Part of what I mean by this is that cultural background is not determined by "race." I have more in common with the third-generation American kids from Japanese ancestors I grew up with than they have in common with their distant relatives in Japan. Why does their ancestry automatically indicate something about cuture? I would even suggest that, as a male raised in a beach town in Southern California, my experience of life is more different -- whatever that means -- from that of a family in Little Italy in Manhattan than from my friend ____ Morita, who was born in Los Angeles, just like her parents.</p>
<p>Anyway. There is no such thing as race, except among people too lazy to learn about individuals. Thank you, Stephen J Gould, and RIP.</p>