<p>:)</p>
<p>But I refrained from saying what I really wanted to say.</p>
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<p>One does not specifically have to be a minority to attend the MITES program at MIT.</p>
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<p>Anyway, just write to Harvard and tell them that your ‘friend’ is faking it as a Native American.</p>
<p>Tribes can decide what it takes to be a member.
Whether they are full blooded or 1/100th, is immaterial.
I would also agree that to apply or not to a school, is up to the student and their family, not what " everyone else is, or isn’t doing".</p>
<p>Unless that is how you want to live your life of course.</p>
<p>I understand the fraction is wrong, but I think students claiming minority status to which they may not be entitled is more common than we think. </p>
<p>My daughter had a classmate who was born in South Africa (of white American parents who were there temporarily on business) and claimed AA status in her college apps. She is now at Brown. (I believe she was also the classmate who applied to every single ivy league and was only accepted to Brown.)</p>
<p>By the way, my kids are 7/16 one “race,” 7/16 another “race,” and 1/8 another “race” (both their dad and I are mixed race). Anyway, this year, the school sent home a form allowing families (finally!) to check off more than 1 race. I asked my kids what they wanted checked and each said all three. That said, I wouldn’t allow them <em>just</em> to check off the 1/8. I know that when I applied to college, my father forbade us to identify even our primary race but I think that was a mistake.</p>
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<p>Perhaps not up until now. Harvard has taken more than one from D’s school at least once. I would let this go and concentrate on your own admissions.</p>
<p>As sybbie says in post #43, one does not have to be a minority to go to MITES.</p>
<p>And at the top universities with which I’m familiar, a student claiming Native American status must provide a tribe registration number on the application. No number, no NA status.</p>
<p>HS students need to be aware that their high school is not individually meaningful to Harvard and that Harvard may choose to take one, zero or four kids in any class year because that’s how the cookie crumbles that year. Really, guys, Harvard isn’t sitting around saying “here’s our annual crop from XYZ high school, we can only pick one, who is it going to be?”. Get over the self importance! </p>
<p>I might also surmise that if the family is wealthy enough to get the genealogist just for college admin purposes (as opposed to a general interest in genealogy), it may be that the family has donated big time in which case that hook is the most powerful one anyway.</p>
<p>Parents have all made good points but…</p>
<p>So what if this kid “takes” someone’s spot? It isn’t like there’s not 100 other good colleges to apply to :P</p>
<p>This story has holes in it big enough to drive a semi-truck through. Don’t be suckers, folks.</p>
<p>I assumed that the “1/116” was a typo for “1/16”, which is a plenty remote relationship: one great-great-grandparent. On the other hand, the Yale admissions person was not wrong in implying that great-great-grandparents come in different flavors. My mother’s family is very close. Her maternal grandfather – my children’s great-great-grandfather – came to this country at 15 and did very well. When his children were grown, he and they all lived on the same block, in adjacent houses, and summered in a compound on the same beach, so that my mother’s relationship to many of her cousins is awfully sibling-like. With the exception of a couple of recent babies, I know all 107 living descendants of that great-grandfather and the 47 living spouses of descendants. My kids don’t feel the same connection to all of them that I do, but they have at least met all of them, too, and there are a bunch that they feel legitimately close to, second cousins once removed, first cousins twice removed, third cousins, that they see regularly. They identify as part of that clan.</p>
<p>“This story has holes in it big enough to drive a semi-truck through. Don’t be suckers, folks.”</p>
<p>Do a search for other “Whiteagle” posts.</p>
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<p>I did, and didn’t see anything untoward. Whiteagle may or may not have all the facts on his friend’s heritage, etc., but the question he raises does not strike me as suspicious, and his other posts are perfectly reasonable.</p>
<p>Same here, owlice.</p>
<p>My point was that LW should do a search before jumping to conclusions.</p>
<p>And, no, I don’t believe there is “a friend”, and I do believe HE is afraid to apply to Harvard and therefore assumes that everyone else is, and that, academically, he doesn’t hold a candle next to his “American Indian” valedictorian.</p>
<p>Well, I think the real problem is that people think they are better qualified than Harvard to say who “deserves” spots at Harvard. </p>
<p>Bottom line, as a private university, the adcoms are the only people qualified to determine who “deserves” those spots. And if they as a whole want to give them only to rich kids, poor kids, Native Americans, quarterbacks, sopranos, legacies, violinists, left-handers, 2400 SAT scorers, tambourine-players, kids from Montana, or dumb kids with wealthy parents, well, then, so be it. </p>
<p>There is no Platonic form equivalent of the “ideal” Harvard class that is being sullied by deviations when NA or other things are introduced into the mix.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl:</p>
<p>That seems a little naive to me. Surely Harvard wouldn’t be allowed to, for instance, only admit white people. What about men only?</p>
<p>There are certain filters that would probably not stand up in a court of law… I can look into the law and precedents, but I seriously doubt that it’s as arbitrary as you seem to suggest.</p>
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<p>Unless of course your white. Then, no problem.</p>
<p>As Auburn slyly and sarcastically points out:</p>
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<p>I was speaking more figuratively than literally … that it is H’s (or any other private college’s) decision as to who they admit, and if they decide that adding some increased XXX to the mix (whether XXX is Native American or from Montana or a soprano or a chess player) makes H a more interesting place, then that’s their prerogative to do so. It’s not as though there was anyone automatically “more deserving” because that presumes that deserving-ness-for-Harvard is measured / ranked on some kind of objective scale. </p>
<p>And if someone doesn’t like that set of often-smooshy-and-subjective criteria, he or she is free to apply to any number of public universities that indeed do judge people solely by their test scores and GPA in determining fitness for admission. </p>
<p>I have no idea about the legality of admitting only white people. Certainly there are women’s colleges who admit only women, and I believe a handful of men’s colleges still out there too. Certainly Yeshiva admits only Jews and Liberty admits only Christians. </p>
<p>Again, my comment wasn’t about legality. It was about the concept that there was an objectively “most deserving” 2,000 (or whatever) people who “most deserved” a Harvard acceptance and that such a list was being sullied because some kid had a 1/16 or whatever Native American heritage and was unfairly leapfrogging ahead of a “more deserving” kid.</p>
<p>The bottom line is this: if Harvard has only 1 slot open for a new student, and there are two equally qualified students (to clarify, Harvard doesn’t have a definite criteria for distinguishing between applicants, one that would hold up in court AND constitute a compelling bona-fide qualification for admission) and Harvard makes the decision based on race alone, they are committing a crime.</p>
<p>However, if Harvard can admit an arbitrary number of students, or if the number of students applying is less than the the number which can be admitted, then Harvard has more leeway in deciding. However, if their criteria for admissions include qualifications which are not compelling bona-fide qualifications for admissions, they are still committing a crime and need to be sued.</p>
<p>All this being said, if the guy is the class valedictorian, he’s probably more qualified than you anyway.</p>