<p>In the interest of true diversity, do colleges recruit on reservations?</p>
<p>Dartmouth may- at least through their alumni network-</p>
<p>Good question lkf. I read a previous thread where someone posted an article that described admissions counselors from certain highly selectives visiting their feeder private schools to assist students with the application and essay writing process. If we are truly seeing a widening gap in the admissions numbers for urms such as Native Americans, perhaps similar attention is merited.</p>
<p>I would check one of the URM boxes if I could, but alas, I'm 100% wasp. There's nothing wrong with using AA to your benefit, if you can.</p>
<p>I am pretty much 100% caucasian as well- thanks to my LDS sister who has traced our family back to the 1400s, I know that we were even here before the revolutionary war- no money but interesting</p>
<p>This is my point, too, soozievt. It is the whole "gaming" that I find distasteful. I am certainly aware that there are blond-haired, blue-eyed students of Spanish origin, and students who have this appearance who bring their culture to the table are wonderful additions to diversity. At issue for me are the blond-haired, blue-eyed students who have no ties to their Spanish culture (or others who also have no ties to other cultures) because they don't even bring the appearance of diversity to the table but conveniently use their ethnicity to bag awards (acceptance, National ___ Scholar, merit awards, etc.) reserved for that ethnic group.</p>
<p>"Mini...sometimes it is these exact same well to do white applicants who play the "right" sports, etc. etc. who are gaming the system and claiming they are Native Americans due to some 1/32 thing in their ancestral background. That's who I was actually referring to. I don't think that is the kind of "affirmative" action that colleges are striving for when seeking true Native Americans. These same "white" applicants are trying to "game"...that's who I was referring to."</p>
<p>Oh, there will always be plenty of rich, white folks who will cheat for an advantage if they find it. Hey, there are some very interesting books about African-Americans who have tried to "pass", too, and with good reason. </p>
<p>If the colleges want to try to figure out who is gaming and who is not, let them do what they feel they need to. I don't feel I need to spend a lot of time trying to figure out who is a "true" American Indian - I don't have the big bucks to spread around.</p>
<p>quiltguru-</p>
<p>Perhaps I read you wrong...but it seems as though you are saying that urms with dark hair, but no connections to their ethnicity are somehow not as distasteful to you as urms with blond hair and no connections to their ethnicity. </p>
<p>Half the National Hispanic Scholars at my daughter's school did not have Hispanic surnames like my daughter, but a couple were darker skinned than my daughter. Who is worse...them or her? </p>
<p>I'd like to think appearances have nothing to do with diversity. Life experiences should define diversity. And if colleges choose to recognize the diverse life experiences of a student's parents or grandparents, so be it.</p>
<p>Like it or not, Idmom06, appearances DO have a great deal to do with diversity on campuses. Learning to communicate with students who have different appearances contributes to the life experience of the student, whether the appearance is dark-haired Hispanic, African, or that of a disability. So, yes, a dark-haired Hispanic without ties to their ancestral origin DOES contribute more diversity to a campus than a lily-white Hispanic without ties to their ancestral origin. My point AGAIN is that I find using a remote connection in one's ancestry to game the system distasteful.</p>
<p>Distasteful? I'd do it.</p>
<p>Indeed. And I certainly encouraged a Hispanic friend of my daughter's to do it. It may be distasteful, but in the high stakes of elite admissions, I understand why it is done.</p>
<p>Of course. Also, large amounts of scholarship money could be at stake. UVA, for example, does not give out merit scholarships. It does, however, give out "diversity" scholarships, which I'm sure an applicant with a 1500 SAT and top 1% class rank would be <em>quite</em> competitive for.</p>
<p>D's friend got one of these "diversity" scholarships full ride to U of M. However, she will be attending the Ivy to which she was accepted ED and to which her parents will be paying sticker price because they can afford it.</p>
<p>Humm, this discussion about blue-eyed blondes not being true hispanic is a tad misleading. Without pointing out that this group is bound by ethnic atrributes and not racial ones, there are plenty of examples to highlight how inappropriate knee-jerk conclusions might be? </p>
<p>First, if you were to look at the soap operas developed south or the border, you will -without much effort- notice a visible whiteness among the actors. The same does apply to most TV presentators. </p>
<p>To illustrates this further, have you ever wondered why Catherine Zeta-Jones is cast in the "Zorro" movies and not Cameron Diaz? I do not know how many hispanics reside in Wales, but her dark hair seemed to have been enough to make her look hispanic, at least to an audience prone to stereotypes! </p>
<p>Speaking about Zorro, our family's best friends are named De La Vega, but the family could be mistaken as originating from Sweden or Denmark as all their members are blond and light-eyed. </p>
<p>Lastly, it may be wise to remember that our good friend Bern007 loved to argue that half the people in Guadalalara, Jalisco were blond and blue-eyed. :)</p>
<p>PS Regarding distasteful, should we not accept that students and families play the card they were dealt with? There is a difference between claiming a native-american heritage and a hispanic or black one because the rules are different. Since there are no limitation on blood percentage for the latter group, they do not cheat when reporting their ethnicity or race. If this group is good enough to be tallied in a group for the census, why would it be distasteful to use the same classification when it comes to college. </p>
<p>I understand when people challenge the merits of the AA system, but cannot find faults for beneficiaries to play the game within the rules, especially since they did not make them.</p>
<p>quilt -</p>
<p>I could not disagree with you more. The whole objective should be to put an end to judging people by their appearances. It's a bit disingenuous to state that you will teach people to stop judging a book by its cover and you will do that by... judging a book by its cover! </p>
<p>And calling fair-skinned Hispanics 'lily-white' and marginalizing their ethnicity surely cannot be helpful. There is no right way to be Hispanic...you are or you're not. That colleges choose to consider this in admissions is not the fault of the student. Why place the onus on the student or their family to correct a system you perceive as unfair when they did not create the system and it is to their detriment to do so??</p>
<p>Idmom, no one is JUDGING anyone by appearances. We learn to live with, make friends with, and become equals with people of ALL appearances. I think you are totally missing the point here. The point is that the system is distasteful and creates the need for students to "game" it to get ahead. And, xiggi, you have caught my point exactly. It's the system that is the issue. Although I find what these students do distasteful, I cannot fault them for taking advantage of a "legal" (I don't mean in the jurisprudence sense) leg up.</p>
<p>On a related note, ldmom: <a href="http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/ny-bc-people-morganfreeman1215dec15,0,6058354.story?coll=ny-entertainment-headlines%5B/url%5D">http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/ny-bc-people-morganfreeman1215dec15,0,6058354.story?coll=ny-entertainment-headlines</a></p>
<p>I think I read you clearly quilt. You place more diversity value on a dark haired/dark skinned minority than a fair haired/fair skinned minority even if they have an equal amount of disconnect with their heritage. If that ain't about the cover of the book, I don't know what is.</p>
<p>And back to the point of my original comments. My D should be able to legitimately discuss her Native American heritage. It is not that remote of a connection, her Apache great grandparent is well known to her if only through other family members. Most members of family still reside in a town adjacent to the Jicarilla reservation. But she chose not to reveal this part of her ethnicity because of those who would consider it an unfair advantage. Despite the fact she has mid-700 scores on all sections of the SAT and on all SAT IIs, national awards in humanities competitions and cheerleading competitions, as well as other state level awards (which have nothing to do with ethnicity) there would be those who would dismiss her acceptances as ill-gotten if she had checked that box.</p>
<p>I personally do no such thing, Idmom, and I absolutely and categorically resent your implying that I do. But I am not America. As xiggi elegantly points out in his post, America does. But MORE IMPORTANTLY, colleges do. Go take a gander at ANY college's homepage. The emblem of diversity for schools is a picture of students of different colors in some activity or another. </p>
<p>My point is that if the student can't even bring to the table something that contributes to this appearance of diversity for the college, then they are not really bringing anything to the table that, by checking the box on the appllication, they claim that they are. Yet, can I fault them for taking advantage of the leg up they receive by checking the box? No.</p>