UPenn and Affirmative Action

<p>Hey guys!</p>

<p>I'm a minority from the US (Hispanic) and was wondering how heavily affirmative action could affect one's admission likelihood. I don't often care to use the minority card, but I can't lie on my application and deny being a minority. I also can't help knowing that it will give me an advantage over other non-minority applicants. </p>

<p>I was wondering what kind of acceptance rates should I expect to see for Hispanics applying to the Liberal Arts School and separately to Wharton as well? Also, I'm not very educated on AA, but from what I hear, it can only help you if you apply ED (all schools, not just Penn)? And does anyone know how Chicano/Mexicans and other Hispanics are weighted, because there are usually two separate categories in applications; as in, is it easier or harder for a Chicano vs. other Hispanics. </p>

<p>Thanks guys! I'm just trying to get a feel for what schools I could gain acceptance (I'm only a Junior).</p>

<p>c'mon give your thoughts</p>

<p>Hmm...sorry, but I can't be sure. I think the rate for Ivies might be up to 15 to 25% acceptance rates for minorities, but again, I'm just sort of guessing. And of course, it depends on how you do in school. What officer positions do you have? How are your scores? Are you in top 1, 5, 10 percent of your class? ECs? Legacy? Hook? The safest way to get into these schools is to ignore the minority card and pretend that you have to apply as a non-minority group. And you still have to have the credentials and scores. Minority or non-minority, you still have to be able to do the work.</p>

<p>You can bet your ass they don't publish statistics on those - they wouldn't want anyone being able to reverse engineer the exact advantage that skin color gives in an application.</p>

<p>From what I've seen at Penn, being a minority from a lesser represented area in the US (ie, not the east or west coasts) can be very helpful for admission. </p>

<p>(Also from my experience at Penn I've seen a number of cases where the person was obviously admitted through AA and I can honestly say those admissions were a mistake. Malcolm Gladwell offers a decent perspective on law school AA in his recent book Outliers if you're interested. This is off-topic, though)</p>

<p>actually they do list that information, check out the specialy admissions page for african americans, theres a thread that lists the acceptnce rate for african americans at top universities and LAC, its for blacks, but it would be about the same or maybe a little better for hispanics</p>

<p>if you can find that information from an official source, i will stand corrected.</p>

<p>URMs have a significant advantage. If you can get 30-32 on the ACT or 2000-2100 on the SAT, you will probably get admitted.</p>

<p>From the press release a year ago announcing the new UPenn director of admissions:</p>

<p>"Eric has a deep appreciation of the importance of inclusion and diversity in admission programs, and shares the University's commitment to increasing access to Penn for talented students from diverse backgrounds, both in this country and around the world," said Penn Provost Ronald Daniels.</p>

<p>Thanks guys. I'm pretty qualified for Penn and other schools, I was just a bit curious.</p>

<p>what race would be considered as URM and what would be considered as ORM?</p>

<p>ORM would be Asians (including Indians).
URMs would be African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Eskimos(?)...anyone want to chime in?</p>

<p>yupp that's pretty much true. Based on the percentages in the us population, there are less hispanics, blacks, and native americans in college than there should be (as in hispanics might make up 12% of the population, but only 7 or 6% of the people in college). Whereas asians might make up (this is a guess) 18% of the people in college, while they are only 8% of the US population. Apparently, and this is what I've heard, it is harder for asians to get into college, because so many more apply.</p>