<p>Ok, so I've got a weird quandary on my hands: my parents were born in Puerto Rico, but I was born in the USA. This leads to some confusion regarding what am I in terms of race and ethnicity. According to their vague references, I'm white, and more specifically, "white of Hispanic descent". My brother refers to himself as Hispanic, and my white friend who was incidentally born in Mexico refers to himself as Hispanic as well. I'm confused as hell.</p>
<p>So, since my parents couldn't give me a straight answer, what do I put on standardized tests, applications (when that time comes around), etc.? More importantly, what do I classify myself as? Thanks in advance, and I'm sorry if I'm missing something obvious.</p>
<p>I’ve moved this before it gets merged into the giant “Race” thread on the College Admissions forum.</p>
<p>Welcome to the Hispanic Students subforum of CC! First, you should read the sticky thread on this forum about the definition of Hispanic/Latino.</p>
<p>What you will read in that thread is that: since your parents are of Hispanic descent, you are Hispanic. Hispanic is an ethnicity, not a race, Hispanics can be of ANY (and any combination) of race(s). Recently most college applications have switched to a two tiered approach: first they ask if you are Hispanic (yes or no) and then ask what race(s) you are and let you mark as many as apply. Definitely mark Hispanic on your standardized tests as this will put you on the radar of colleges and other programs.</p>
<p>Ok, now that that’s been clarified, does it matter what ethnicity I put down on the PSAT/other standardized tests up to this point? I don’t remember what I’ve been putting down, but I think I put down Hispanic on PSAT, and I might have been putting down different ethnicities (either White or Hispanic) on lesser standardized tests that I don’t take anymore.</p>
<p>The important part about marking Hispanic on the PSAT is that you could qualify for the National Hispanic Recognition program which sends your name to colleges and for which many schools give merit scholarships. NHRP has state cut-offs that are lower than NM, they vary by year and are not widely publicized. See the general NHRP thread and the threads about NHRP scholarships and emails/letters from schools on this forum for more information.</p>
<p>If you didn’t put down Hispanic on your PSAT, it’s still OK, several students on this forum also did not but had high enough scores, and with the assistance of their HS GCs, were able to contact NHRP and get recognition. One more thing, make sure your HS correctly has your ethnicity as Hispanic as your GC will need to verify for NHRP.</p>
<p>Please be sure to look at the other sticky thread about Resources for Hispanics, it contains important information about summer programs, fly-in opportunities, etc.</p>