<p>I am going to be applying to college in fall, and i was wondering if i could fall into URM status w/o getting in any trouble. My mom is from India and my dad is from Africa. I have considered myself Indian all my life, but for college admission purposes, could i be qualified to be put under "african". I am technically not lying or anything, and we have proof that he was born there. I figure it would give me a significant advantage, and if the affirmative action system is so messed up, why not take advantage of that as well??</p>
<p>For most colleges in the US, you would not be considered a URM. For students of black African heritage, URMs usually are considered to be those who are African American-- with at least one parent who was born in the U.S., and therefore considered victimized by the U.S.'s legacy of oppression toward black citizens. </p>
<p>If your dad is Indian who was born in Africa, of course it should be clear that you'd not be consided African American.</p>
<p>There are some colleges that highly value students with international backgrounds. These include some excellent universities that are in areas that don't have many people of color. I believe that some of these universities would include Cornell, University of Wisconsin, Middlebury, Davidson, and Bowdoin.</p>
<p>What country in Africa is your dad from? I think you should be completely honest and check multiracial or other and explain your situation specifically, but in the end it is your decision!</p>
<p>Northstarmom, But there isn't a section in most apps to distinguish between "Africans" and "African Americans"; The box usually says "black, African, African American". I was born in Nigeria and moved here when I was six, so I am just as "American" as any African American. nmehta4 is half African American because she was born and raised here. So for you to say that she is not African American is wrong. Being African American does not mean that you are ancestors of slaves; it means that you are an American of African descent.</p>
<p>URM however means "underrepresented minorities" -- minorities who are underrepresented in colleges compared to their presence in the US population. Students of direct black African descent actually are overrepresented in U.S. colleges while black students whose parents were born in the US are underrepresented in US colleges.</p>
<p>Black students whose parents were born abroad also were not hurt by the legacy of slavery as much as were those whose parents were born in the U.S., and were prevented from getting good education, professional and housing opportunities due to legal segregation and discrimination.</p>
<p>Some colleges actually are differentiating students who are African American -- black with one or both parents who are black and born in the U.S. -- and students who are African American, but gained that status because they are of immediate black African or Caribbean heritage (have at least one parent born in Africa or the Caribbean). That's why some colleges are now asking where students' parents were born.</p>
<p>Bottom line: At many of the top colleges, the OP will not get an admissions tip. This particularly is true of places like Harvard, which over the past years noticed that a disprortionately high percentage of its black students were of immediate African or Caribbean descent. One of the people there who first broughtg attention to that is law professor Lani Guinier, who herself is biracial (mother was white and Jewish), and her father was from the Caribbean.</p>
<p>The OP may get a tip, however, at some top colleges -- particularly those in isolated, nondiverse areas -- that have a hard time attracting any students of color.</p>
<p>From a 6/2004 New York Times article:
"CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- At the most recent reunion of Harvard University's black alumni, there was lots of pleased talk about the increase in the number of black students at Harvard.</p>
<p>But the celebratory mood was broken in one forum, when some speakers brought up the thorny issue of exactly who those black students were.
While about 8 percent, or about 530, of Harvard's undergraduates were black, Lani Guinier, a Harvard law professor, and Henry Louis Gates Jr., the chairman of Harvard's African and African-American studies department, pointed out that the majority of them -- perhaps as many as two-thirds -- were West Indian and African immigrants or their children, or to a lesser extent, children of biracial couples.</p>
<p>They said that only about a third of the students were from families in which all four grandparents were born in this country, descendants of slaves. Many argue that it was students like these, disadvantaged by the legacy of Jim Crow laws, segregation and decades of racism, poverty and inferior schools, who were intended as principal beneficiaries of affirmative action in university admissions.
What concerned the two professors, they said, was that in the high-stakes world of admissions to the most selective colleges -- and with it, entry into the country's inner circles of power, wealth and influence -- African-American students whose families have been in America for generations were being left behind.</p>
<p>''I just want people to be honest enough to talk about it,'' Professor Gates, the Yale-educated son of a West Virginia paper-mill worker, said recently, reiterating the questions he has been raising since the black alumni weekend last fall. ''What are the implications of this?''</p>
<p>Both Professor Gates and Professor Guinier emphasize that this is not about excluding immigrants, whom sociologists describe as a highly motivated, self-selected group. Blacks, who make up 13 percent of the United States population, are still underrepresented at Harvard and other selective colleges, they said....."</p>
<p>I have to respectfully disagree Northstarmom, with what you said about how colleges view URM status. I have specifically seen in interviews with the presidents of UPenn and Columbia saying that they view all blacks the same and do not diffentiate between those born here and those not. However, I don't think this is the case at Harvard (or at least some ppl don't want it to be the case) As for the OP, put down which ever race you wish. No need to ask the question on CC.</p>
<p>My proof:</p>
<p>'But others say there is no reason to take the ancestry of black students into account.</p>
<p>"I don't think it should matter for purposes of admissions in higher education," said Lee C. Bollinger, the president of Columbia University, who as president of the University of Michigan fiercely defended its use of affirmative action. "The issue is not origin, but social practices. It matters in American society whether you grow up black or white. It's that differential effect that really is the basis for affirmative action."'</p>
<p>Source (actually I think it's yours as well NSM):</p>
<p>Interesting FredFredBurger. Maybe Harvard is ahead of the game in paying more attention now to trying to get more African American students in the admissions pool. </p>
<p>The below from the May, 2007, Education Guardian also supports what you stated:</p>
<p>"When Shirley Wilcher went to a reunion at her prestigious alma mater, Mount Holyoke in Massachusetts, she got quite a shock. The number of black graduates whose parents were born outside the US seemed to have grown dramatically compared with those whose families had been in America for generations - back to the times of slavery - like herself.</p>
<p>She suspected that, in the process of becoming more diversified, top universities had recruited more black students but, increasingly, they were not those from post-slavery African-American US backgrounds who were supposed to be the main beneficiaries of the civil rights movement and controversial policies such as affirmative action.</p>
<p>Wilcher demanded data from reluctant admissions officials and her suspicions were confirmed: student recruits from what is termed the native, or domestic, US African-American population had been dropping. Not only were blacks overall still under-represented, but within the black student population African-Americans were being squeezed out....</p>
<p>Wilcher is the executive director of the American Association for Affirmative Action, which promotes policies that discriminate in favour of black students in an effort to correct the long legacy of racism in the US. And there was wider confirmation of her informal research to come.</p>
<p>A report just released shows African-Americans losing out at selective colleges across the country, particularly at elite universities, and their places being taken by first- or second-generation American immigrants, at least one of whose parents was born in the Caribbean or Africa.</p>
<p>The joint University of Pennsylvania-Princeton report found that although immigrant-origin black students make up only 13% of the black population in the US, they now comprise 27% of black students at the 28 top US universities surveyed.</p>
<p>And in a sample of the elite ivy league universities the figures were even more dramatic. More than 40% of black students in the ivy league now come from immigrant families. Overall, however, black students still make up only 6%-7% of ivy league students, while 12% of the general US population is black. In the non-ivy league selective colleges studied, such as Berkeley, Emory, Stanford, Tufts, Wesleyan, Barnard and Smith, black students make up between 3% and 9% of the population.
<a href="http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,2089757,00.html%5B/url%5D">http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,2089757,00.html</a></p>
<p>It's not necessarily that Harvard is ahead of the game (it doesn't take a genius to realize what Gunier was stating), it's just that Harvard has the best appeal (this is coming from a kid who's top choice school is not Harvard). If you cut out all the high acheiving African immigrants to America from already the limited pool of high achieving African Americans you have a very very very small pool. Only Harvard has the appeal to get those few kids in so they could afford to do something like that. No other school can unless they want to see a drop in black enrollment or even lower standards for URM admission. And thus, most other selective schools do not care about the origins of a black applicant.</p>
<p>Op States:</p>
<p>
[quote]
My mom is from India and my dad is from Africa.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Op does not say her father is black, just that he was born in Africa.</p>
<p>the U.S. Census defines African American as the following:</p>
<p>Black or African American. A person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as "Black, African Am., or Negro," or provide written entries such as African American, Afro American, Kenyan, Nigerian, or Haitian.</p>
<p>If the OP does not fall into this category then she is not african american and willful and intentional misrepresentation is grounds for having your admissions rescinded.</p>
<p>Fredburger,</p>
<p>Northstar mom is actually correct in that african americans who are the first generation children of recent immigrants are over represented in the college admissions process and colleges are making a concerted effort to reach out to african americans who have multi-generational roots in the U.S. The common application now ask for your country of origin if you are a green card holder and some schools are also now asking where were your parents born. </p>
<p>Colleges are also making more efforts to reach out to blacks in the rural south and along the delta since they all ready know that many recent immigrants are now living in NYC, Atlanta and other large cities in the country. Since the time when the article you posted was written I can tell you first hand that Columbia is making more of an outreach to students who have multgenerational roots in the U.S. and those living in Harlem (where the university and it's hospitals are the largest employer of Harlem residents ).</p>
<p>
[quote]
I figure it would give me a significant advantage, and if the affirmative action system is so messed up, why not take advantage of that as well??
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The system is messed up. In addition, there’s nothing wrong with playing by the rules.</p>
<p>The rules say “we give preference to students who are black.” They do not say, “we give preference to students who are ‘multi-generational’ black.”</p>
<p>I encourage all racial preference supporters to push for more and more segmentation of so-called “under-represented” minorities. By doing so, they will cause divisions within their own ranks and speed up the disintegration of their flawed policy.</p>
<p>for college admissions purposes, you can definitely put black.
the other posters are wrong.
technically it should be rewarding the blacks in the US who have been treated unfairly, but for college purposes, please screw that (if you want to get into a good college).
i have a friend whose both parents are from Africa. he still qualifies to click african american. </p>
<p>whoever saying that shouldn't be done is definitely WRONG.</p>
<p>most asian americans are first generations, so why can't black be too?</p>
<p>Northstarmom,</p>
<p>do u agree asian americans who's parents are directly from asia can put asian american? if so, same w/ black.
the policies should be consistant, NO WAY colleges have doublt standards for this.</p>
<p>fabrizio: </p>
<p>you state:
The rules say “we give preference to students who are black.” They do not say, “we give preference to students who are ‘multi-generational’ black.”</p>
<p>black generally is a collective term, if they don't specify non- multi-generational than thats included under "black"</p>
<p>If you are reading a literal interpretation into "asian-american" and "african-american," then yes, you are correct that anyone of asian or african ancestry that is an American citizen qualifies, respectively. What some people on this thread are trying to point out is that Affirmative Action, whether you believe in it or not, is intended to help people who have historically been disadvantaged and discriminated against in higher education and in general in this country. Therefore, if your parents are black but were born outside the country, they have not experienced institutionalized racism in this country. </p>
<p>Asians are not considered at all for URM status so your argument is irrelevant.</p>
<p>well, affirmative action was technically meant to protec "any race" from any "disadvantage competitions" in college admissions. So it includes asian americans. </p>
<p>however, the "practice" from colleges hurts asian americans extremely. but the actual "affirmative action" includes every single race.</p>
<p>when colleges ask to click the race, they do not ask for your pedigree. </p>
<p>I agree, it's completely unfair b/c a lot of black who get in great colleges are first generation (parents have to either be rich or smart enough to immigrant to the US), thus losing the purpose of affirmative action. but life is unfair, and a sucky lousy system like affirmative action will benefit people who don't deserve it, and hurt people who dont deserve the hurt as well.</p>
<p>furthermore, if you have read the newspaper, a rapidly growing number of latino Americans are immigrating. their kids will be considered "hispanic" and their parents aren't from the US. </p>
<p>of course you can argue hispanic is technically not a race, but an ethnicity, but i'm not trying to justify anything. i'm just pointing out the current system is **** and there are flaws, and people use the flaws to their benefit when they can.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Asians are not considered at all for URM status so your argument is irrelevant.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Not quite.</p>
<p>Asian students are “true” minorities at many liberal arts colleges, particularly ones in the South and Midwest.</p>
<p>Furthermore, some Asian groups, such as Filipinos, are considered “under-represented,” but the benefit is negligible compared to the big three “under-represented” groups.</p>
<p>I doubt that the number of Hmong Americans in our colleges exceeds the number of black Americans, but such is how “under-represented” has come to be.</p>
<p>fabrizio, you're being nitpicky and you know it. there are <em>no</em> absolutes when it comes to things like this. no one claims that AA is perfect. clearly it needs to be adjusted to account for things like first-generation Africans claiming URM status or rich minorities getting a leg up. but until then, if it benefits just a few people who otherwise wouldn't have a chance at college, then so be it.</p>
<p>
[quote]
...if it benefits just a few people who otherwise wouldn't have a chance at college, then so be it.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>lilybbloom,</p>
<p>Thank you for acknowledging that the "it's just giving a tip to an equally qualified applicant who isn't white" defense is a falsehood.</p>
<p>Even so, I doubt that these "just a few people" would have no chance of attending any college. Many community colleges are open to anyone who desires to learn.</p>
<p>If they truly had no chance at any college, then they should not be at college.</p>