If a person is an Asian white or Hispanic (not black) mix, then what I said doesn’t apply to those people - it only applies if part of the mix is black.
My point was, any amount of black ancestry made you black in the US. This belief, or classification if you will, is not really changing as much as the laws that discriminate against part-black people have been changing.
I did not say the only possible mixed race student has African ancestry.
Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant by this:
There is no URM box, first of all. And as I recall on the common app, there is a mixed race option but it asks which races are in the mix. So I don’t see how there could be any confusion as you suggest, unless the student lies or incorrectly guesses.
ACT/SAT already require a photo, and photo ID. What a shame if the colleges have to begin to verify what the testing companies are charging students for.
How would you check that? A DNA test would be authoritative, but I’ve never heard of any college, anywhere asking a student to take one. Why would a high school report be more authoritative than whatever a student chooses to self report? It’s not as if any high school is asking students to take DNA tests either, so the high schools, if they collect the information at all, are repeating the self-reported information from the kids/parents.
@OHMomof2 I get a feeling that we are speaking to this from very different backgrounds so apologies for all the clarifying questions / apparently unclear statements from my side.
Okay, that makes sense. I’m more thinking along the lines of coding in IT systems.
The coding in my state should go like this (not to say some systems don’t suck):
-If more than one, mixed
-If more than one, choose the URM one in the event that that there is a minimum threshhold for URMs (e.g. grant application for schools with minimum % of URMs), otherwise choose mixed;
-If no answer, insert NA or “no answer”; never substitute a default positive answer
However, some systems do actively choose from the top of the picklist. And that’s a problem.
Well, I think it was a bit ambiguous but I hear what you are saying now.
There are four possible URM boxes in my state. Black / African American, Hispanic/Latino, Native American, and Pacific Islander/Native Hawaiian when that is separate from Asian.
quoteThe term “minority institution” means an institution of higher education whose enrollment of a single minority or a combination of minorities (as defined in paragraph (2)) exceeds 50 percent of the total enrollment. The Secretary shall verify this information from the data on enrollments in the higher education general information surveys (HEGIS) furnished by the institution to the Office for Civil Rights, Department of Education.
Regarding the Common App, my question is, do they validate with, or draw from, school records. I can understand how it works now, where you just check your box and off you go. However, I was wondering if anyone is seeing this data flow through directly to the college, like the FAFSA pulls from your tax returns.
It sounds like we are still very much protected by FERPA in this regard which is good because primary schools are not great at collecting demographic statistics.
And on the common app, there is the chance to put more than one of these. In fact if you select Hispanic you will also be asked about race (black, white, NA, 2 of those, all 3)
Wow, this article makes me so sad. Mixed-race people denying Asian heritage to gain advantages. Admissions officers admitting special treatment of Spanish surnames. And the existence of a hierarchy of desirable races.
It’s interesting that there are 278 pages where Asians, Hispanics, Blacks and White are discussed in excruciating detail, yet a few posts about Jewish organizations on Ivy league campuses reporting that Jewish students make up 20-25% of the student body and suddenly I’m “obsessed” and an anti-semite?
Setting aside your personal attacks, you are correct that Harvard Hillel did not use the correct number of Harvard graduate students in their calculation, but your new 20% calculation falls in line what they have traditionally reported.
Is it accurate? I’ll let Hillel respond:
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The Jewish population data in the Hillel College Guide is listed as an estimated figure, based on various publicly available sources. Unfortunately, most colleges no longer share information on student religious affiliation and fewer students are designating a religion in their application forms. Our data is based largely on the number of students who provide their contact information to Hillel or engage at least once with our programming. Hillel also relies on a variety of estimated practices, including gleaning information from the university and local Jewish community, as well as survey data. As Dr. Saxe noted, we adjusted figures at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard when more reliable data was made available.
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Is it possible they overestimated? Of course.
Irregardless, if a more realistic number is 15% of Ivy Slots. That means 70,000 Jewish students out of the 3.5 million US seniors would get into the Ivy League. Huge over representation.
I know it’s politically incorrect to criticise anything about Jews but he is right about very high percentage of Jewish students getting accepted into top schools. May be because they were discriminated earlier? May be due to wealth, legacy, connections?
@OHMomof2 we don’t have a race because we are mixed. So for college, because we know the game, I would advise my kids to pick nothing.
But their K-12 public schools need funding so I don’t mind checking all the boxes if it helps because that goes to the kids who need it. Like you get TIII if you have a certain % of Hispanic, but my kids don’t need that. We are happy to ensure the school gets the $ for the kids who need ESL.
I don’t want that to affect college. That’s why I’m wondering about joining systems.
Surveys of students show far lower Jeiwsh percentages than listed above. For example, in Harvard’s most recent freshman survey, 5% of students identified as Jewish. Cornell has a more extensive survey at http://irp.dpb.cornell.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/2017-Cornell-PULSE-tables-1.pdf . 8% of freshman in the Cornell survey identified as Jewish, which is lower than the ~10% of NYS residents that identify as Jewish. 18% of American Indian students at Cornell identified as Jewish, as well as good portion of Hispanic students. It wasn’t just White students. The reasons why Jewish students are overrepresnted to some extent are likely similar to the reasons Asian students are overrepresented at highly selective colleges, which have been well discussed in this thread — not a secret conspiracy to favor Jewish applicants.
More relevant to thread, the survey linked above divides answers by race. So you can compare how survey answers differ for different races, among Cornell students. There were many survey questions with large differences by race. For example, 29% of Black students at Cornell described the Cornell climate as disrespectful for students of color compared to 6% of Asian students. 25% of Black students said they often skipped meals due to financial constraints compared to 8% of White students. 56% of Black students said they sought tutoring or other academic assistance compared to 27% of White students. All surveyed races reported being satisfied as whole with Cornell (89% International, 87% White, 85% Hispanic, 81% Asian, 74% Black).
@OHMomof2 of course I know that College Board and ACT already require pictures…that was my point. Will the colleges start to ask students for a picture and compare it to the score reports? It’s actually a very simple thing to do. Georgetown requires a picture with their application. Even if they don’t end up checking them all, the threat of a random audit might be enough. This is one of the cheap ways technology could help minimize cheating which I suspect is more rampant than we realize after this scandal.
@roethlisburger I’m not sure how it is in your town, but in our public system when a student enters kindergarten, they fill out demographic information that stays with them throughout their years in the system, and probably goes with them if they move to a different district as well. So yes, I suppose it’s just as easy to lie on that but when your kid is 4 years old, you might not be thinking “gee, I’m going to check African American so that my kid has an advantage in 13 years when he/she applies to college”…so again, it’s not fool proof but it is another way to identify potential liars/cheaters. And not all parents scrutinize their kids college applications…I suppose it’s also entirely possible that a student that knows he/she has a better chance of getting in as a URM to a school might consider checking the wrong box on purpose.
I know a woman that tried to change her kids demographic profile with the school to remove the fact that her kids are half Asian. I’m not sure if she was successful…I think she might have been.
I agree that this (which race box is checked on the college applications) probably isn’t something that is thoroughly checked, but I find it hard to believe that NO admissions counselors EVER question a checked box, especially ones that might seem suspicious.
Whew that’s a can of worms potentially though isn’t it? Studies show we favor attractive people, for instance. Would you want to add that subjective factor to the college admissions brew?
Maybe biometrics, some day.
I understand. I don’t think the systems are joined, too many HS systems for colleges to do that with all of them, IMO.
It seems the Hispanic tip is the smallest of all at most elite colleges. @Data10 has posted some specifics on that before.
Well for starters @tpike12 this is a thread about race, not religion. As you surely know, Jewish people can be black, white, Asian, Hispanic, Native American and/or any other race.
We don’t talk a lot about Christian or Muslim or Hindu percentages either.
The Harvard information is very misleading. The question they asked is about the students’ religion. Over the last six years, an average of 8% of the freshmen at Harvard claimed to follow the Jewish religion, they were not asked if they “identify” as Jewish. Undoubtedly, there are Jewish students in the 35% of Harvard freshmen that say they are agnostic or atheist.
In terms of college racial categories, that’s pretty much just white.
I don’t go to church but I am definitely of Christian ancestry. No colleges care except perhaps those with some kind of religious interest (Catholic or Mormon or Yeshivas or whatever).
MODERATOR’S NOTE: Let’s move on from discussion of Judaism or other religions (even if you consider it a race) as related to college admissions. This is an instruction, not a suggestion.
Even if you checked a box when your kid is 4, you can still go to the school when your kid is 17 or 18 and say your information is wrong and you need to change it.
We can just have colleges request MD-certified skull measurements. The Mongoloid skull is round rather than long, with wide breadth, a high face and nose, frontal and lateral projection of the malars, broad palate, and a general facial flatness, especially in the upper face and interorbital region. The Negroid skull possesses a broad and round nasal cavity, no dam or nasal sill, notable facial projection in the jaw and mouth area (prognathism), a rectangular-shaped palate; a square or rectangular eye orbit shape, a large interorbital distance; a more undulating supraorbital ridge, and large teeth.