<p>Re #440</p>
<p>The assumptions I was referring to include associating “more time spent studying” and “parents excusing student from summer or afterschool work obligations” with Asian applicants while providing zero evidence that either is true.</p>
<p>My two friend who are Lebanese and Palistinian were wondering if their ethnicitys were considered to be a minoritys or URMs. Searching the college ED or RD threads i see little to no people who are of either decent. Your thoughts?</p>
<p>yes it is, are they citizens of Lebanon? Rare that you know two, are they twins or something?</p>
<p>No, Middle Easterners are not considered minorities or URMs, however they are considered internationals if they reside in their ME countries. You might check the extensive CC thread on “race in college admissions” to explore the topic.</p>
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<p>Your question was merged into the main FAQ thread on this issue. </p>
<p>I’m not aware of any college that has an announced policy of treating Lebanese-American students as students with an admission boost. Perhaps there are some exceptional colleges that do. There have been some colleges that have actively sought to increase their number of Palestinian students, but again I don’t know in particular which colleges do so. Both ethnicities are categorized as “white” by the federal rules, so to mention this fact the applicant must make a special effort to mention the applicant’s ethnicity and what it means for adding diversity to the college the applicant is applying to. It may not have any admission impact at all, but that probably depends on the college.</p>
<p>What’s better? Someone told me applying ED gave you more of an upper hand than being an URM. I’ve come to believe from browsing CC that being URM would be better. So what do you think? I’m a white girl applying ED at Cornell. Do you think I would have fared better as an URM RD? I think URM is better b/c adcoms are more lenient on the scores. Like my scores are good enough for Cornell but definitely bottom of the pool, but they’d look better if I was say, black or Mexican (not to be racis) but you know how it goes with stereotypical socio-economic things, especially concerning test scores.)</p>
<p>ED does not really give you an advantage. Being a URM does, but it won’t make up for bad grades or test scores. Ultimately though, this is all irrelevant because if you are a white girl (like me), we’re both sadly in the boat of wishing we were not white girls so we could get an advantage at schools… Sigh.</p>
<p>I would say if you love Cornell, apply ED. I’ve heard it doesn’t give you a big advantage, but maybe a little one?</p>
<p>Yeah, I totally wish I was URM! And ugh, I suck at life, I only have a 29 ACT (30+ in each section and dang 25 science bringing me down!), I have no chance even with ED =( On the other hand, I am a first gen, trilingual white girl with a 4.83w and 4.0uw and rank 3rd out of 700, that counts for something right?! Ha, it probably still won’t be good enough… I hate CC it makes me feel like a failure lol</p>
<p>ED might give a teensy weensy advantage; EA and SCEA will not. There’s no question that being a URM is a more substantial admissions boost.</p>
<p>Yay, so I was right!</p>
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<p>History tells us that this was a very effective way to keep the Jewish numbers down. Even future Nobel Laureates faced rejection in large numbers. So, what worked for Jews should also work for “New Jews”, right?</p>
<p>Any attempt to explain admission standards without taking this incident into account is bogus. It is interesting to note that although I was unaware of it before I came on to CC, my theory is able to explain it without even a hiccup. I don’t know of an alternative theory capable of doing so.</p>
<p>^^^^^ </p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> The Early Admissions Game: Joining the Elite (9780674016200): Christopher Avery, Andrew Fairbanks, Richard Zeckhauser: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Early-Admissions-Game-Joining-Elite/dp/0674016203/]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Early-Admissions-Game-Joining-Elite/dp/0674016203/)</p>
<p>How have the questions on college applications about “race” been looking so far? Have they all been conforming to the new federal regulation? </p>
<p>[U.S</a>. Department of Education; Office of the Secretary; Final Guidance on Maintaining, Collecting, and Reporting Racial and Ethnic Data to the U.S. Department of Education [OS]](<a href=“http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/other/2007-4/101907c.html]U.S”>http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/other/2007-4/101907c.html)</p>
<p>tokenadult,</p>
<p>All the apps I’ve seen for grad school have phrased the questions almost identically: they first ask if you identify as Hispanic and then ask you to check which groups you self-identify with. I don’t think any application “forced” me to answer, several gave “no answer” as an option.</p>
<p>As a sidenote, when I was filling out the basic information part of Michigan’s application, I saw what I believe are the effects of Proposal 2. Michigan asked me a few questions that I didn’t find in any other applications, namely</p>
<ol>
<li>Were your parents U.S. citizens or permanent residents when you were born?</li>
<li>Since graduating from high school, have you joined any association that seeks to promote racial cross-understanding?</li>
<li>Do you work to offset your tuition?</li>
</ol>
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<p>Actually, your personal, unsubstantiated assumptions are bogus. That is evident from your previous posts in regard to your misunderstanding of how AA actually works in this country, and further evident in your failure to distinguish former vs. current admissions standards. </p>
<p>It’s simplistic but convenient to draw a false equivalency between Jewish admission decades ago and today’s admissions situation in all its far more complex variables. The two time frames are not even similar, let alone the applicant pools themselves.</p>
<p>Nice try, though.</p>
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<p>As I understand it, the variables themselves have not become any more complex than they were in the 1920s at Harvard.</p>
<p>According to [Malcolm</a> Gladwell](<a href=“Getting In | The New Yorker”>Getting In | The New Yorker),</p>
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<p>What’s changed?</p>
<p>Like fabrizio’s quote from Gladwell, part of the reason the holistic admissions systems was implemented to keep Jews out.</p>
<p>What makes anyone think the Ivies have been significantly more holistic since that system was implemented?</p>
<p>But I don’t really see non-socioeconomic holistic admissions really making a difference on admissions. Apparently, the admissions officers at Duke thought Asians did just as well on holistic factors as any other race.</p>
<p>Well, I think we have finally fallen through the rabbit hole on this one. When scholarly evidence and data becomes “personal, unsubstantiated assumptions” and personal, unsubstantiated assumptions becomes reality, it is time to move on. When rationalism and empiricism are no longer respected, there is nothing left for me to say.</p>
<p>I think my theory holds up because it is based on the immortality of human nature; it holds up for the same reason that Shakespeare’s plays are still being studied today; and it holds up for the same reason that humanities have not degenerated into wild bouts of fantasy into lalaland.</p>
<p>I will continue to come back to this thread now and again to test my theory against new data and evidence of course, but argument for its own sake is just adding fuel to the semantic hell I talked about earlier.</p>
<p>It has been interesting.</p>
<p>Karabel’s book The Chosen </p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton: Jerome Karabel: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Chosen-History-Admission-Exclusion-Princeton/dp/B0027VT0HE/]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Chosen-History-Admission-Exclusion-Princeton/dp/B0027VT0HE/) </p>
<p>is well worth a look for quotations from many primary sources about how college admission procedures developed in the twentieth century. As you read it, ask yourself when admission procedures became much like they are at present.</p>
<p>At a college meeting in my town tonight, a college admission officer, apparently speaking a little too far off the cuff, managed to say that a fine college we have all heard of has “38 percent of students are from different ethnicities,” which I guess is supposed to mean that 62 percent of the students are from nondifferent ethnicities. Whatever that means. The statement astonished the student who wrote it down at the meeting. Maybe the college could have said, “100 percent of our students are of some ethnicity or another” to better effect.</p>