<p>What races are considered URM? Also, is it just race- do sexual orientation or gender identity matter when identifying someone as a URM?</p>
<p>Generally URM refers to Hispanic ethnicity and races of African-American and Native American. These are statistically the lowest-performing groups for standardized testing, and therefore would, without some sort of help, be severely underrepresented on college campuses in relevance to the general population. Gender may factor into admission to certain majors (e.g., engineering for women and liberal arts for men), but I don’t believe there’s any general preference given for sexual orientation.</p>
<p>URM refers to African American, Hispanic American, or Native American.</p>
<p>Individual schools sometimes then create their own groups if they want to provide a favorable factor for them. For example many engineering colleges add a URM factor to women applicants. I am not aware of any colleges that do so for LBGT.</p>
<p>yeah… otherwise anyone could just claim they’re LGBTQ</p>
<p>In some instances, Asians are considered URMs. This is most often true with rural LACs that tend to have a more difficult time recruiting and retaining URMs. Also, income level and country of origin can come into play.</p>
<p>Sexual orientation or gender identity are not considered URMs for college admissions; remember the definition of URM given by Skeezey: underrepresented in college relative to the general population. This information is not known for sexual orientation/gender identity, for all we know, these groups could be ORMs in college.</p>
<p>Pardon my ignorance, but can URM include internationals from under-represented countries? Basically what I want to ask is: does an international applicant - from say Comoros? - have an edge in admissions?</p>
<p>Absolutely. Applicants from countries that send only a few applications are at a significant advantage.</p>
<p>niensen: Bubbles For Sale is partially correct but partially incorrect</p>
<p>1) International students are NOT counted as URMs regardless of ethnicity. For very competitive schools, Int’l students in general face the most difficult competition for allocated slots.</p>
<p>2) SOME schools, hoping to attract more international students who have the ability to pay in full, will give preference to that unique group</p>
<p>3) VERY few schools give lots of financial aid to international students. These handful get a huge number of international applicants and thus, are the most difficult to gain admissions</p>
<p>4) even fewer schools have the combination of a) great fin aid and b) want international diversity enough to consider unique factors such as Comoros applicant.</p>
<p>Finally at Milkyway: there is no shortage of LGBT applicants – so there is no preference given to them.</p>
<p>^Agree with T26E4 on all counts.</p>
<p>Note that self-identification is typically on the honor system, although Native American claims are more likely to need verification (e.g. tribal enrollment or similar documentation).</p>
<p>Bottom line: being from an under-represented country MAY be an advantage only if you’re willing to pay the full sticker price?</p>
<p>Being from an under-represented country MAY be an advantage for some schools that holistically evaluate candidates and the “uniqueness” factor may catch a reader’s attention.</p>
<p>Whether full-pay or not, internationals generally have it tougher due to the limited spots.</p>
<p>The few schools that offer need blind admissions to internationals — full pay or not won’t affect evaluation.</p>