<p>My boys are both a little more than 1/4th hispanic. Their grandfather came from Mexico I believe and their grandmother is partially hispanic.</p>
<p>We didn’t even talk about this until after my older son had completed all of his applications. We asked him what he had checked. He checked the caucasion box (or whatever it is). When we asked him why, he said that even though he has a hispanic last name, he has never felt hispanic. The kids don’t look hispanic and were brought up in a middle class home. We don’t speak any spanish and the closest we get to mexican food is usually Taco Bell. :o) My younger son will be completing applications this year and wishes there were a box that just said human that he could check.</p>
<p>If others wish to use that to their advantage, then why not. There are people doing a lot worse things to get ahead in this world, so why not when technically, they are correct to do this.</p>
<p>oldfort, if you read my previous posts I said that if colleges feel obligated to help Hispanics then they should take into account their socioeconomic circumstances as well. An even better solution would be to take off the minority privileges completely so people who actually NEED the extra help in admissions would get it, no matter what race they are. </p>
<p>A kid who is lets say Ukrainian works 40 hours a week to help his family, volunteers and has a 3.5 GPA. Why should a kid who is 1/4th Hispanic get help from admissions and not the Ukrainian? It’s unfair and I don’t like the system and those who purposely take advantage of it.</p>
<p>You are making assumptions that are not true.</p>
<p>All my D is doing is checking the box that identifies her as Hispanic and/or Hispanic/white. She is honestly answering who she is and anything else would be wrong in my moral opinion. To me, not identifying as (part) Hispanic is like hiding that part of her identity. </p>
<p>She is not getting any money for doing so. Perhaps an edge on her resume/ application because she will qualify as a National Hispanic Scholar through College Board. However, I don’t think that is an unfair advantage. She is not taking away anything from anyone. All Hispanic students who score a certain PSAT score will be listed as a Hispanic Scholar. She is not bouncing anyone who you would categorize as more deserving.</p>
<p>My D is not trying to take scholarship $ from anyone of a lower socioeconomic level. Most scholarship money has a need requirement. Since we do not have this need she will not be applying for those scholarships.</p>
<p>I will say, though, that D will be happy to accept any merit aid $ that comes her way. We are hoping that she may qualify on the basis of her artisitic talent, just as her older sister is getting merit money for her musical talent. Should I feel guilty about that too?</p>
<p>Under the definition “1/4 Hispanic” my kids could check the box for Hispanic based on their grandmother (husband’s mother), who was born and raised in El Salvador. My husband is fluent in Spanish, spent several years and summers during college in El Salvador, and wrote his Stanford honors poli-sci thesis on Salvadoran politics. He “checked the box” in his day and was comfortable doing so.<br>
We don’t check the Hispanic box for our kids and we don’t plan to. It just doesn’t feel right/ethical. This is a hard decision–and a close call for us–because their grandmother is by far the closest grandparent to the kids. When we lived in Texas, we spent pretty much every Sunday evening, Thanksgiving, and Christmas at her house, where Spanish was spoken as much as English since she has surrounded herself with Salvadoran family and friends. FWIW, I am non-Spanish speaking Anglo and it used to drive me nuts.
Our son took high school Spanish and is now relatively fluent because, among other things, he wants to speak the language when he visits El Salvador (he has been there twice so far for family weddings). The saddest part of the above decision is our son’s PSAT score–202. Solid and we’re proud of him, he will get a useless “commended” letter, but he would have been a Hispanic scholar had he checked the box. We have two more kids in the college pipeline, a possible scholarship would have come in real handy. Luckily, he did very well at his first stab at the SAT, so that evens things out.<br>
Will we have regrets if he doesn’t get in to his dream school (Stanford). Sure, it is such a crapshoot there that we are almost negligent NOT advising him to seize every possible leg up, including checking a box for which he qualifies. He is darn sure checking the legacy box!<br>
Now that he is a little older, we have left it up to him at this point with respect to college admission aps (it is his life, after all). If he decides to indicate Hispanic, I am fine with that. It’s funny, we never even considered the issue until I got on here in December and realized that the 1/4 issue even existed. IF he puts down Hispanic, we will definitely advise him to clarify his 1/4 heritage in the “other” section of the app.</p>
<p>If he chooses to identify as Hispanic, he can still be recognized as NHRP even though he didn’t mark Hispanic on his PSAT. It would take a call by his HS GC to NHRP, they have recognized students that were missed as late as Nov of sr year.</p>
<p>Note: This is not a comment on whether or not to identify as Hispanic, that is a personal decision. I am only supplying information on the NHRP.</p>
<p>Thanks Entomom, I really appreciate it. For the first time, I actually went to the relevant section of the College Board and it sounds like they encourage someone like him to identify. I talked to MIL about it (she is visiting and reading over my shoulder, haha). She hopes he decides to identify–she would be proud for him to acknowledge her influence in his life–and it truly is a large part of who he is. I don’t know if it is because she is Hispanic or just who she IS if you can guess what I mean. She is BOSSY! (she is laughing and agreeing). I am closer to her than my own mom, which is sad and wonderful at the same time. (Big hug just now from “Mom”).
Lots of stuff to consider, thanks again.</p>
<p>Sounds like you have a great MIL! More than a little like my own, although she’s not with us anymore, we miss her.</p>
<p>If you haven’t found it yet, please take a look at the Hispanic Students forum (under College Admissions, Specialty Topics). There’s lots of great information about college fly-ins, summer opportunities, scholarships, etc. We stress honesty in declaring Hispanic identification; our main goal is to provide information, experience and resources for Hispanic students navigating the college admissions process.</p>
<p>And if you call up the NHRP people they will be even more encouraging. I spoke to them at length–to both the person who fielded phone calls and then to her manager–to make sure D’s designation of Hispanic for a child who was 1/4 Hispanic and white sat well with them.</p>
<p>And when I contacted the NHRP they were discouraging to me or at least weren’t encouraging. If my son considers himself Puerto Rican (he is 1/2 PR, which, for the record, includes-at least in his case-African, Spain Spanish, and Native American) but doesn’t associate himself with any “group” of “Hispanics”, he’s not considered Hispanic by the NHRP. So, I have no idea what college admissions will be like for him. If he interviews, college interviewers will see his ethnicity. He told me he marked Puerto Rican on the PSAT (got a 225) but I haven’t heard anything about the PSAT yet, so we’ll see what happens.</p>
<p>I think the thing about colleges is that not only do they want to help URM who are economically disadvantaged, they also want a diverse population. So, could my 1/2 Puerto Rican son add diversity? Maybe. Are my son’s stats enough to get him into college without any hook? Maybe. (2320 SAT I, some national level awards, strong and diverse ECs, 3 SAT IIs, 730-800, athletics, music, etc.) But, would it be nice to actually have a hook? Yeah. We are a middle income working class family (78K a year) and while we aren’t poor, we will need help to get our 3 kids through college so yes, we have discussed whether or not to indicate Hispanic on applications and I don’t know what the answer will be.</p>
<p>As an addendum, I felt like I needed to add something. My son has good friends of many different ethnicities: Chinese, Mexican, Black, White, Korean, Japanese, Philipino, etc. We are used to a wonderful and diverse mix of people in our circles and each one brings a unique experience to my son’s life. He’s no less PR or White if his circle of family and friends is mixed rather than homogenous. As far as speaking Spanish, though my son studied it for about 5 years, in high school, he has chosen to learn Arabic and wants to become fluent in college.</p>
<p>Just an observation re: diversity in elementary/middle/high schools. From my experience, different religions and ethnicities didn’t really add all that much diversity to public schools beyond some different family traditions. Even family income didn’t matter all that much. All of these kids lived in the same neighborhoods, took the same classes, played for the same musical groups and sports teams. In high school, it is relatively homogenous simply because of the fact that school is a huge part of the students’ lives and they share so many of the same resources. Whether a kids was rich or poor, black or white or hispanic, catholic or jewish or muslim…they were teammates and band buddies and stood in the same cafeteria line and struggled over the same math problems. By sharing so much common experience, any diversity was mostly superficial.</p>
<p>That’s an interesting point. In my son’s case, because we homeschool, his wide circle of friends is not homogenous. They come from different parts of our large city and state, from widely different schooling experiences and socio-economic backgrounds that do shape them and him. For instance, he has two friends at church who have been (and may still be) homeless, or at least they were living with their mom in a homeless shelter. He has friends at the math circle and in chess who attend expensive private schools and who are very wealthy. His friends from community college and the university are not only from various backgrounds but ages, as well, from late teens to upper 30s in some cases. His friends on the baseball team are all Christian homeschoolers and that would probably be the most homogenous group he hangs out with. His musician friends are very diverse since he plays in a community orchestra with mostly adults and he plays in bands/quartets with kids who don’t homeschool, some who are in college, and some who work full time. So, I guess for everything, there are exceptions.</p>
<p>sbjdorlo, your homeschooled students probably do have a lot more diversity among their cohort. Within the same high school, kids have very many more similarities than differences, no matter what their family background (and whether it is a “checkable” one or not.) </p>
<p>Hey, maybe high schools should be categorized in some way, and then colleges could obtain diversity by choosing a certain percentage of admits from each school type. It makes at least as much sense as what they do now.</p>
<p>From school profiles, adcoms already have a sense as to whether the school is lily-white-suburban, mixed in terms of socioeconomics, mixed in terms of racial representation, etc.</p>
<p>lkf, That may be true of many schools, but it’s not universally true. My kids attended a very diverse school in which no race or ethnicity was 50%. There are many kids from every continent, kids whose parents are in the top 1% of income and kids whose parents are illegal and barely survive. There are born-again Christians, Jews and girls who go to school wearing a hijab. There are also many kids who are living in the US but will soon leave. I can’t tell you how much that experience opened the world to my kids. They have traveled the world and are very comfortable. They know much about different cultures, traditions, languages and history. I can see why colleges believe that diversity adds to the experience of their school.</p>
<p>I don’t disagree with you 2collegewego. The point I was trying to make, perhaps not all that well, is that kids attending the same high school are bound together by that experience. They attend for around 7 hours per day, then do after school activities, then socialize with their friends and discuss stuff from high school. Most of their waking hours are a shared experience. They are united by their common experiences more than they are divided by their differences. Imo, of course.</p>
<p>Kids, as a group, from different kinds of high schools (diverse, homogenous, urban, rural, private, etc) are more different from each other than are the kids within the same high school, even given the ethnic and religious differences that exist.</p>