<p>Again, why should the form-filler-outer have to interpret the purpose of the ethnic background box? For argument’s sake, let’s just say that instead of Hispanic heritage, a college wanted to know about Italian heritage. My daughter’s father was 100% English, with the pasty skin to prove it. My heritage is 1/2 Italian and 1/2 Irish. My kid doesn’t look even a little bit Italian, but if asked if she had Italian heritage, she’d say yes. And why not? Maybe the forms should say something like, “For reals, are you an honest to goodness Hispanic person? Because if we let you in and you turn out to be all red-headed and freckly, that’s one mark against you in the honor code ledger.” If the adcoms are really making big admission decisions based primarily on ethnicity and race, with no appreciation of socioeconomic status or other factors, that would be a shame. I’d like to give them credit for having more sense, but if they don’t, so be it. For myself, I’d rather chill than go nuts worrying about all the rich black or Hispanic kids who might be given a more favorable admission review than my middle-class white kid. There are a lot of factors at play, and it’s my feeling it all comes out in the wash. What about people who “quit” good-paying jobs and become contract employees to make themselves look poorer for financial aid purposes? It’s legal. I wouldn’t feel honest doing it myself, even if I could work something out with my employer, but I wouldn’t presume to judge someone who made a different choice. We all have to bear the burden of conscience for the choices we make, particularly when we’re in a grey zone.</p>
<p>It would be nice if we knew why they wanted this information. So they can boast of their “diversity” with solid percentage figures on Hispanics, Asians, people from all 50 states? That’s certainly harmless. Or because they want to give scholarships to certain groups? That’s a bigger commitment on the part of the form-filler-outer.</p>
<p>I think the answer sometimes depends on why they are asking.</p>
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<p>As I recall, the checkbox simply asks, “Are you Hispanic?” It doesn’t ask if you are at least 5% Hispanic or 50% Hispanic or whether you identify with Hispanic culture. Technically speaking, if you had a single Hispanic ancestor 200 years back, you would be lying if you marked no. One does have the option of not marking any of the boxes, or of marking the appropriate boxes and then adding “1/32nd Mexican” and elsewhere “31/32nds white” and letting the individual admissions committees decide what to do.</p>
<p>This can be an emotionally charged issue, but one can hardly be faulted by simply stating the facts and putting the ball back in the decision-maker’s court.</p>
<p>Adcoms DO take into account socio economic issues when looking at Hispanics. Give them some credit. </p>
<p>A poor inner city Latino will not be expected to have the same stats as a high income suburban one. At least at the tippy top schools they are getting tons of very qualified Latinos…especially among those with upper middle class backgrounds. At the high/middle income end it might help you only slightly.</p>
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Ditto, NJSue - I enthusiastically agree with you!</p>
<p>The ethnicity designations are clearly meant to give an advantage to certain groups. Many people obviously take advantage of the system, partly because there is no real oversight. If there was any risk of being “audited”, fewer applicants would tell half-truths (or 1/4 or 1/8…haha!). Asian and caucasian people hate the system because it puts them at a disadvantage. Apparently, hispanic and African American people are also angry because others are gaming the system. The only really fair thing for colleges to do is to eliminate the question. (Of course, I realize that is will never happen.)</p>
<p>According to College Board—to be considered Hispanic and therefore eligible for the “scholarship” that they administer (the National Hispanic Recognition program which is based on PSAT scores)—you are considered Hispanic if you are 1/4 Hispanic. (Having a grandparent from their list of Hispanic countries.) They ask guidance officers to confirm this if a child is given this designation. (We showed them my husband’s birth certificate which shows that his mother was born in Argentina.)</p>
<p>College Board assembles a listing of top Hispanic scholars based on their PSAT scores and GPA’s. There is no scholarship money offered directly through College Board for this designation. Colleges may chose to purchase the list of honorees and may chose to create scholarships that may have additional money/ benefits tied to it. Obviously, students may chose to list this designation on their college applications or resumes.</p>
<p>So lkf725, this is where I based the legitamacy of checking the box for a child who is 1/4 Hispanic. My daughter is certainly not telling a half truth. Nor should she be led to feel that she is gaming the system by stating a fact.</p>
<p>I am sure that there are others who use different criteria for checking the box on tests and college applications. I felt that using College Board’s guidelines seemed legitimate.</p>
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<p>I am really not trying to be either sarcastic or rude at all, because I am still genuinely confused by OP’s claim and all…</p>
<p>But what of most enigmatic OP? </p>
<p>She claims her children’s father is descended from those who once lived what was at one time (over a hundred years ago) Mexico. Right? </p>
<p>I quite liked learning of the College Board guidelines very much. They make perfect sense with this sort of thing as near as I can gather.</p>
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<p>It’s not “gaming” if they specify that the cut-off is 1/4 or more and someone is legitimately 1/4.</p>
<p>uskoolfish and pizzagirl, I am not directing my comment to imply that uskoolfish’s daughter cannot indicate her 1/4 hispanic ethnicity. I’m sorry if it seemed that way.</p>
<p>My point was that, over the years of reading cc, I have seen many threads in which a poster wonders if some obscure relative would allow them to be considered a minority, or if a white person living in Africa is African American, etc. Then somebody inevitably accuses them of gaming the system. Eventually, somebody points out that socioeconomic class is a better indicator than skin color or the country your family came from several generations ago. </p>
<p>Parents and students are eager, sometimes desperate, to take advantage of every possible perk. Believe me, I get it. What I am trying to say is that people on both sides if the fence find fault with the system. URM’s bemoan abuse of the system. ORM’s complain of discrimination by the system. Honest people in the middle often aren’t sure what to do or check. Is it your ancestry? Is it your neighborhood? Is it your culture? Is it how you feel? Any system that is so controversial, difficult to figure out and disliked by folks on both sides of the fence can’t be all that good. </p>
<p>I personally think the system is poorly conceived if the purpose is to help the disadvantaged. However, if the purpose is to admit a class with a desired demographic, then they got it just right.</p>
<p>^^good points.</p>
<p>I wanted to point out that discrimination still exists, even when people of color are not in poverty. Four years ago, h and I attended the school’s fall activities fundraiser. The cheer squad came out, and at a school with 48% students of color, all the faces looking out at the crowd were lily white. Think after the first year the minority students even bothered to try out? It’s a small example, but it’s wrong to say to a minority kid that you haven’t been disadvantaged because your family has money. Maybe less disadvantaged, but a lot of prejudice has simply moved underground.</p>
<p>And one more thing
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<p>Anonymity shouldn’t spell the end of civility. Disagree. Challenge my views. Tell me I’m wrong. Glib insults, however, are only funny on sitcoms.</p>
<p>lkf725,</p>
<p>I agree with you completely. The system was made so colleges can help the disadvantaged minorities. GENERALLY, those who are Hispanic have cultural, language and socioeconomic barriers. & colleges want to make it an equal playing field for them. Some people like to act dumb and pretend that checking off the Hispanic box is only for statistic purposes. But it’s not, checking off the box gives you an advantage, but if you have NOT faced any sort of barrier as a Hispanic then I see it as an unfair advantage. A poor Hispanic boy working 40 hours a week to help his family and balancing school has a 3.5 GPA. A Hispanic in the upper middle class doesn’t have a job but has a 4.0 GPA. The poor Hispanic SHOULD be receiving the help from admissions but because the system is messed up they both receive the same advantage. I’m not directing this towards anyone, but if your son or daughter is 1/4 Hispanic has gone through NO obstacles as a Hispanic and has very few to no ties to their culture could you sleep at night knowing that they are using their Hispanic ancestry as an unfair advantage? I certainly could not. </p>
<p>I hope that this system is fixed or just ended. It’s really not fair to anyone.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that ANY student who works 40 hours a week to help his family while maintaining a 3.5 should have extra benefits, not only hispanic or any other minority that has a box on an application. The current system is flawed - the same way the FAFSA is flawed because it doesn’t take into account where you live (cost of living), only income.</p>
<p>Michone is spot-on.</p>
<p>Sent from my DROIDX using CC App</p>
<p>HarvardBound - Thank you!</p>
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<p>Absolutely! I live in a working class neighborhood with lots of immigrants. A fair portion of them are Hispanic, but there also plenty of folks from the Middle East and some from Eastern Europe. Why does the Hispanic kid deserve a leg up over the Syrian kid or the Croatian kid, when they are all dealing with the same problems?</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s as simple as you make it, CoolRunning. Issues of race and ethnicity are complex in many cases and how others view you is a real part of the equation. My son is 1/2 Puerto Rican and he looks “ethnic” (my youngest son has called him black at times, which is a whole 'nuther story). I never gave any of this a thought until my son had to start applications for various things. I found out he considers himself Puerto Rican but we, his parents, are white. He does not associate himself with other Puerto Ricans; frankly, I really don’t know any, and he doesn’t “hang out” in any one ethnic group. We come from a racially diverse area and everything that we participate in is racially diverse from church to orchestra to college classes. </p>
<p>When I emailed the National Hispanic Scholarship people, they indicated that a kid had better “feel” their Hispanicness or they need not apply. I, frankly, think this kind of rigidity doesn’t cover every case or every kid. My kid will wrestle with his identity his whole life perhaps, or perhaps he’ll always be a part of communities that don’t really look at skin color. I don’t know. I just know it’s more complicated than it might appear on the surface.</p>
<p>Every case is unique. My D always felt a connection to her Argentinian grandmother and the fact that she came from a Spanish-speaking country and grew up in a totally different place and time.</p>
<p>Even though she passed away when my daughter was relatively young, my D feels that to deny this part of her background is to deny what made her grandmother special and to deny her Grandmother’s place in my D’s life.</p>
<p>Several posters feel that designating oneself as (part) Hispanic is all about using it to an advantage over others.</p>
<p>To my D, it is all about recognizing the bond she had with her grandmother as a child and saying this is who I am. It is not about trying to take scholarship money from the disadvantaged.</p>
<p>@ uskoolfish: Now rhetorically ask yourself this; Does your daughter speak Spanish fluently? What portion of her origin makes up her ethnicity? She shares a connection of heritage with her grandmother? Good! The criteria of cultural curiosity is fulfilled, and that’s one of many criterias that pose as an unwritten rule of requirement. Just because one can relate to a matter, does not entirely give them the right justify themselves as the latter.</p>
<p>For example, I’ve met an obnoxiously conceited person – claiming to be of French, Native American, Dutch, and German descendant, 3rd in line according to these ethnic connections, and yet, she did not speak a single drop of any of those languages as listed. She’s straight up white! Nothing more, nothing else …</p>
<p>If you’re going to claim to be something, you should at least be fluent or proficient in targeted language, and to some extent have some sort of bloodline that traces your roots to that ethnicity.</p>
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But is that unique? Don’t most of us feel some connection with our grandparents? Don’t most of us appreciate our ancestral culture? That’s not a hispanic thing. Lots of peoples’ relatives came to this country poor and alone, not speaking English, lucky to find any work. Sometimes even the applicants themselves. We all appreciate our ancestors, how they suffered in their native countries, and how much they toiled to earn a better life. Yes, and also how they were victims of discrimination. We don’t all have a “box”, but we all feel that connection. I agree with post #155:
That said, I have nothing personal against a hispanic applicant indicating that fact. It’s just not unique and I feel that the sytem disregards so very many others.</p>
<p>"I personally think the system is poorly conceived if the purpose is to help the disadvantaged. However, if the purpose is to admit a class with a desired demographic, then they got it just right. "</p>
<p>at the time that these categories were established, there were (whether there are still is another question) realities of RACIAL discrimination against Puerto Ricans (mainly in NYC) and Mexican Americans (mainly in the southwest) who faced barriers more similar to those facing african americans than to those facing ethnic whites. One could have designed a system to restrict preferences to just those groups however that was not done - I think organized hispanic groups would have fought against that as divisive, there would have been an eliminant of arbitrariness (why Mexicans and not Guatemalans?) and folks didnt expect the obvious cases that didnt belong (affluent Argentians, whatever) to be that important. </p>
<p>I am sympathetic to the view point that social econ circumstances are more important than race in presenting challenge to young people. But what would be the implications of favoring lower incomes in a formal way? People already complain about the economic disincentive effect of financial aid. Anyway, you can put that on an application in lots of ways - through essays, etc. </p>
<p>I think between the interest groups that have a stake in affirmative action as it currently is, and the folks who are so ideologically opposed to it that they will accept it in no form whatsoever, all attempts to “rationalize” it to adjust for changing social conditions have an uphill road to climb.</p>