<p>nil desperandum,</p>
<p>A 590 on the math sat would have nullified any chance for Columbia. An elite university like Columbia has many high scoring urms to choose from. I know of a urm with a >2000 score who was denied, and I have seen many urms on cc with 2100 sat score get denied from ivies. The competition is stiff for these schools.</p>
<p>I disagree with .Mas and say that anything that shows a disadvantaged factor (low income, first generation) as well as minority status, ALL GIVE YOU AN EDGE. They don’t arbitrarily give certain situations a plus; being underpriviledged and not having anyone in the household with too much knowledge to be able to help you on your classes will all be taken in a sympathetic light</p>
<p>The study done by Princeton was an average according to how things turned out, admission officers certainly just dont tack on 300 points or whatever onto a SAT score if they see someone whose Hispanic. </p>
<p>But yeah, to the OP, you certainly have a lot of hooks, take advantage of it</p>
<p>Okay, I have a question… I’m Hispanic and I’m a fairly strong applicant (4.0 UW, rigorous courses, approx. 2200 SAT) but I’m not from a low income family and both of my parents have graduate degrees. Do those things really negate my status as an URM?</p>
<p>wadawada </p>
<p>I think it depends how much you are making. You will probably get points because you are Hispanic but since you are not first generation and you make good money, it is not going to give you a lot of an advantage than say being Caucasian with a divorced family who is first generation with a very distinct state geographical residency. Honestly, I think state plays a very important role when choosing candidates if you look through the acceptance threads you see that people in very unrepresented state with first generation status almost always get in unless they have a very low ACT score like a 21.</p>
<p>"nil desperandum,</p>
<p>A 590 on the math sat would have nullified any chance for Columbia. An elite university like Columbia has many high scoring urms to choose from. I know of a urm with a >2000 score who was denied, and I have seen many urms on cc with 2100 sat score get denied from ivies. The competition is stiff for these schools. "</p>
<p>umm, smileygerl— That’s exactly what I was trying to say.
Didn’t you read my post. I wouldn’t dare apply to Columbia eth a 590 math. I was telling him not to rely on AA , but his own hard work.</p>
<p>@wada, nothing “negates” anything. You will still get a leg up because of your minority status, even if you’re parents are not underpriviledged. On top of that, I think that with your SAT scores and your minority status, you will be a top pick for a lot of top schools (including Columbia). I actually know someone who is in the almost exact situation you are (hispanic, parents both doctors, 2200 ~ SAT) who was admitted to Columbia early</p>
<p>@nil, uh I think you’re generalizing, because you most definitely still can get in Columbia with a 590 on math SAT…I know someone who made 580 on math SAT, (but got a 4 on his Calc AP) who got into Columbia…and even if you look at acceptance records on CC, you will run across minorities with 1800 ~ SAT (lower than 600 math SAT) who was admitted…</p>
<p>Everything is taken in context. math SAT tests algebra skills, definitely not the most high level; many people still manage to score 4 - 5 on CALC AP (as my friend did…), and this would most definitely show the admission officers that the student was much more capable than what SAT measured/showed</p>
<p>Similarly, if you do bad on critical reading on SAT (say, 590 again), but manage to score 4 or 5 on AP English (higher level thinking, analytical thinking. etc.), then admission officers will get a much better glimpse of you</p>
<p>Well I have to hope that you’re right, collegeftw, but I’ve heard both sides of peoples’ opinions and I guess I’ll find out how soon enough how competitive of an applicant I really am. </p>
<p>It’s somewhat saddening when people say “oh, you got in because you’re Hispanic”… I will take every advantage in this process that I can get, but I guess they don’t realize the amount of effort I’ve put into my grades and my essays and everything, and I guess they choose to not see that other qualified URM kids are getting rejected from the same schools. There’s so much more to an application than checking a box with your ethnicity. Ah well, tis life.</p>
<p>there is something inherently wrong with giving a group of people an advantage simply because of the color of their skin.
if one would argue that its not the color of the skin, rather the low socioeconomic status that is associated with that skin color that should be considered, well then i say i am also a URM, and that there are problems with that as well.
i come from a school with 100 kids. 95% of students in any given year go to city schools, with roughly a third of the class in community college.
i could afford no sat class (actually thats a lie, my mom offered even though she had little money to give. i told her to keep her money and that id study on my own), i took the test on my own. i took books out of the library, etc. etc.
i got a 109/167 on my first psat in 10th grade.
i got a 1440/2140 on my real sat. all without any classes or amazing ap classes to take advantage of. i scored the highest my school has seen in a decade.
my friend (who is also an anomaly at my school) is in a similar situation except with slightly lower scores.
my mom attended CUNY for two years and dropped out, and my dad dropped out in the 10th grade.
both are immigrants. both make little money.</p>
<p>however, on my commonapp i indicated that im white(middle eastern) which isnt entirely accurate because i dont have dark skin, my family just originates from the middle east, but nevertheless.</p>
<p>why dont i get any special circumstances crap?
cause im white and jewish. and because schools like columbia have an imperfect system.
they choose to see race, but not economic status. if you ask me, thats not right.</p>
<p>yes, people who are disadvantaged should be viewed differently, for the reasons admissionsgeek has said. but not because of the color of their skin. thats ********.</p>
<p>what if affirmative action was used in professional sports?
hmm that would suck wouldnt it? i know id watch less of it.</p>
<p>^ while I agree with you wholeheartedly…reality’s hard bro. Also, all that can go on the other thread that discusses affirmative action lol, I don’t think that really helped the OP at all</p>
<p>First of all, do we have any objective data as to whether or not colleges recruit students from families in the lower socio-economic strata? Not really. Sure there aren’t that many people with Pell Grants at elite universities but that could just be because not manylower income students apply to ivies. After all, there is only a 10-12 % (at most) amount of AA or 10-12 % Hispanics at most ivies. This does not mean minorities aren’t recruited.</p>
<p>Next, gshak13, how do you know you will not be admitted to Columbia? You don’t. Maybe
Columbia will see all the hardships you’ve encountered and accept you-- you don’t know.</p>
<p>(to address the question of whether ivy league colleges recruit poorer students I think we should create a forum where students who have incomes under 30,000 post their stats and the places they have been accepted to)</p>
<p>Next, think of it this way, being black/hispanic has always been a drawback in everyday life for people of a different color. And when a hispanic girl walks across the street/talks to a police officer/or lives in Arizona (rookls eyes)-- she cannot ignore/deny her race. Why should she omit her race from a college app, the one time when her race might actually benefit her?</p>
<p>I will agree with you that AA is flawed. I, myself, have doubts about it because, at best AA is extremely ineffective for the wider populace of minorities and at worst just leads to more racism from people who unjustly feel entitled to a spot at the ivy league college of their choice (those words are not directed towards you,just others people I have spoken to or argued with). AA makes sure the top 1% of AA/Hispanics get into elite colleges – it operates by a trickle down effect. If I give admission to this brilliant hispanic guy- he’ll surely go help the rest of the hispanic kids in the barrio,right? right? Not necesarily.</p>
<p>However, one cannot deny a couple of things.
<p>i just want to correct one misconception that is probably my fault.
im not looking for any sympathy. i dont deserve any. there are people who are much worse off than i am.</p>
<p>sorry collegeftw haha…</p>
<p>i agree with you nil.
and in fact i do appreciate diversity. i just think it should be deserved by all. of course that entails the adcom of each school making the decision (still). </p>
<p>but again, and this is undoubtedly overused, not all people who are stereotypically poor/disadvantaged are.</p>
<p>what do you mean deserved by all? if you mean we should have socioeconomic diversity? I agree. I think we need to hold colleges more accountable for increasing that type of diversity.</p>
<p>nil:</p>
<p>columbia recruits from programs that traditionally serve low socioeconomic groups (upward bound, prep for prep and more local community based organizations). they recruit from communities that are traditionally low income (rural areas in the plains, Appalachia, and especially native communities). </p>
<p>the objective data that i have is that in 2008 columbia received money from an alum specifically to recruit lower income students by going to community groups - churches, neighborhood academic support groups, national organizations.</p>
<p>beyond that there are tools now available to admissions people to target low income students regardless of ethnicity. tools provided by folks like the collegeboard. [EPS</a> - Enrollment Planning Service](<a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/higher-ed/recruitment/eps]EPS”>Recruitment and Admission – Higher Ed Services | Education Professionals – The College Board)</p>
<p>i think the idea somehow that schools do not recruit based on socioeconomic status is a farce. and also there is a tendency for us to forget the socio aspect of socioeconomic status, in which social cleavages are as important as income to determine someone’s status, often meaning that someone who is white and someone who is black and they make the same salary they wont be of the same socioeconomic status.</p>
<p>i don’t mean to hit on you nil, your post shows you know some of the nuances, i was just mostly hitting back at your first claim.</p>
<p>gshak has a lot more problematic issues. mostly because he presumes that people of equal salary levels experience life the same. race and ethnicity continue to be the most prominent cleavages in this country that account for deviation in performance.</p>
<p>until that is not true, any AA that does not consider race and ethnicity would be ‘feel good’ AA and not really attacking the problem.</p>
<p>“there is something inherently wrong with giving a group of people an advantage simply because of the color of their skin.”</p>
<p>You’re absolutely right, and I really wish that we lived in a world in which all people were equal, and differences in skin color were only differences in skin color. But you know that’s not the case. Like it or not, thanks to racial prejudice throughout history, and particularly the history of this great nation, almost everything encountered in life is racialized. As a result of the legacy of societal and cultural distinctions based on race, Blacks are simply treated differently than whites in America today, independent of socioeconomic status. </p>
<p>It’s difficult for me to give specific examples, because it’s just so embedded within our culture and our history, but let me try to sketch this out. Blacks are arrested much more frequently than whites, and that’s not because all police officers are secretly Klansmen. There’s a very powerful, almost unconscious, cultural idea that Blacks, especially poor and young Black men, are associated with gangs, violence, drugs, crime, lack and even disdain for education, and defiance of authority. That idea is incredibly racist, and really disadvantages young Black men; all other things being equal, an employer who is aware of this stereotype is going to be less likely to hire a young Black men than a young white man. The young Black man applying for the job may not be involved in a gang, violence, or anything else, but his race is associated with it, so all that baggage is part of how others (in this case the potential employer) view him. I’m sure if the employer knew him very well as a person, the stereotype would matter less, but if the employer is just going off a job application? No matter what, the very fact the stereotype exists means the Black applicant has to compensate for that, which profoundly disadvantages him compared to the white applicant. Of course, white people commit crimes too, but “white” seems like such a default and all-encompassing identity that it’s not tainted by these associations and stereotypes the same way that Black is.</p>
<p>I’d like to point out, though, that though the stereotype is incredibly racist, the fact is that crime is much higher in poor Black communities. But why is this? Is it just because Black people are inherently criminal? Of course not. It’s due to social factors like crushing poverty, lack of employment prospects, bad schools, and so on. Those social factors, moreover, are the results of our historically racist policies. Why do so many Black families live in inner-city ghettoes? It’s not because they went there to smoke crack and live off welfare checks. In the early- to mid-20th century, there was a massive migration of Blacks from the South (why so many Blacks in the South? Oh right, slavery!), partially escaping Jim Crow laws, who moved into urban centers of industry and manufacturing in the North and Midwest, such as Baltimore and Detroit. Of course, white people (who were overtly racist) wouldn’t let non-whites live right next door to them, so they had settle to ghettoes. And as more Blacks came into the cities, whites fled to the suburbs. And when Blacks tried to move to the suburbs…white homeowners refused to sell them houses and banks refused to finance their loans. The government eventually stepped with the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s and forced whites to allow blacks into their communities, and whites protested vehemently. When Martin Luther King, Jr., the hero of the civil rights era, went to the Chicago suburbs to encourage whites to allow Blacks to live in their towns, people shouted “Shoot the ■■■■■■■■ So Blacks, even those with money, had to stay in the hollowed-out inner cities, which soon became full of crime and drugs. They were denied the American Dream that whites were allowed, and this was only 30-40 years ago. The legacies have not gone away.</p>
<p>This is not to deny the importance of socio-economic status for both whites and blacks. It’s wrong to claim that a unemployed Black man in inner-city Baltimore and an upper-middle class Black lawyer in an affluent suburb have the same experiences of life simply because they’re both Black. But it’s equally wrong to claim that only socio-economic status matters and race plays no role. Both race and socio-economic class (and let’s throw in gender while we’re at it) structure the way that we experience the world, and you have to consider all of them when considering any of them. It’s important to consider socio-economic status, but you can’t just discount race. They both matter.</p>
<p>P.S. If anyone reading this is at all interested in these ideas, I’d recommend you check out this excellent book I’m reading for my sociology class, “Killing the Black Body” ([Amazon.com:</a> Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty (9780679758693): Dorothy Roberts: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Black-Body-Reproduction-Meaning/dp/0679758690/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300785297&sr=8-1]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Black-Body-Reproduction-Meaning/dp/0679758690/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300785297&sr=8-1)), which examines the intersection of gender and race when it comes to reproductive rights.</p>
<p>“race and ethnicity continue to be the most prominent cleavages in this country that account for deviation in performance.”</p>
<p>that is because stereotypes are usually true, despite the negative connotation behind the word. there are many people of each race that dont attend lower public schools and that do have a lot of opportunities to exploit in their schools, homes, etc. </p>
<p>youre right pwoods, race does matter, to an extent. i would conclusively say (based on experience and contemporary knowledge) that blacks/hispanics and other stereotypically disadvantaged people, even when they are not “disadvantaged” per se, are still not “equal” to their neighbors.
still, they are arguably and, in my opinion, undeniably, more advantaged than poor whites or any other people in poverty.
as a general rule in america, money makes money. and money runs the country (if not the world). people are free, nowadays at least, to spend money as they wish.</p>
<p>Schools of Columbia’s tier are certainly looking for all kinds of diversity, and diversity within their targeted groups. Adcoms pay attention to your parents’ occupations, level of education, as well as your zip code. But no single demographic criterion in itself will guarantee you admission if other more objective standards aren’t met.</p>
<p>This might be a bit of a random question, but I’ve always wondered this. Does it matter what nationality you are? For example, if you’re Hispanic, will adcoms tend to be more interested in someone who is Cuban or Dominican over someone who’s Puerto Rican?</p>
<p>gshak13, </p>
<p>Your argument is as such: I understand that black people of the same social strata may have different experiences than white people but an upper middle class black male is still more advantaged than a poor white kid.<br>
Have I correctly summed up your argument?
We are saying: admissions geek-Columbia does recruit extensively from lower-income households. I am saying: I haven’t yet quite seen enough data to really give a concrete answer. However, at least I know that Columbia has the highest amount of Pell Grant recipients in the Ivy League ( and those with Pell Grants are low,low income).
I can’t really find a point in your argument, you have no data to back up your claim that Ivy league schools don’t weigh low income status more than race and that is the only part of your argument that you haven’t conceded. So, what are you arguing about?</p>
<ol>
<li>I don’t appreciate you limiting your example to only blacks and whites.</li>
<li>Admissionsgeek true statement and your backing of the statement that columbia does recruit many students from low income households is associated with its willingness to recruit students from special programs that target low income kids (questbridge is an example I can think of). Additionally, the fact that it gives more attention to ethnically diverse people is a feasible reason for why that statistic is veracious. Because, as I said, although there are anomalies, the fact of the matter is that most stereotypes are true. Most blacks and hispanics are poor, and most whites and asians are in better standing.</li>
<li>How can you say that they consider economic status more than race when they choose to see race and not economic status? Plus, although this probably doesn’t help my argument, different races make schools more diverse (which is what they like to show off); clearly they have a vested interest in accepting accepting people of different ethnic backgrounds.</li>
</ol>
<p>first pell grants are not super low income, if you look at the number it is actually just shy of 40k, which if you income graph it means it is still only bottom 40% of income earners in general. </p>
<p>what we should realize is that college overall is top heavy. half of students at harvard come from families that make over 150k, or are about top 5% of income earners in the country.</p>
<p>“I haven’t yet quite seen enough data to really give a concrete answer.” what data do you expect to see? that columbia spends X amount on recruiting students from low income backgrounds? or that they admit X number from different income bands? first columbia wouldn’t share that data even if it did. </p>
<p>second, recruiting in low income areas often is not something an ivy+ school will do with an eye toward admission, but rather in order to encourage college-going in general by reaching out to students from varying abilities and backgrounds. so you aren’t going to admit the kid who can’t cut it, but you will hope that by recruiting/talking with and reaching out to students that they enhance their college search beyond a few local schools.</p>