Hi all!
I am an ED applicant to Brown’s Class of 2022. I see a lot of talk on this website about underrepresented minorities and hooks and stuff like that. My question is, what counts as an underrepresented minority? For example, I am a refugee to the United States. I was born in Iraq, and when I was six my family moved to Jordan because of the war before being granted the opportunity to immigrate to the United States a year later. I speak Arabic and English, and I had no experience with English before moving to the US. Today, I am in the top 10 in my class and I have received many awards for my writing. I don’t want to give too much info about my common app essay but it’s an essay that I actually received a scholastic gold key for last year and it talks about my background as an immigrant and how I came to accept my two identities as an American and an Arab and also as a Muslim American. My SAT isn’t very high (1420) but I got a 24/24 on the essay and I have taken the most rigorous course load available at my school senior year (actually more because I am taking 2 online AP classes in addition to 4 AP, 1 IB HL, and 1 Honors classes at my school). I am also a girl applying as an engineering major. How will my background affect my admission to Brown or college in general? Is being a refugee a sufficient “hook”?
It is not a hook. A hook is something that fills an institutional need of a school – it can be a recruited athlete, a child of a huge donor, a person who may bring some desired positive attention to the school (ex. Malia Obama, a movie star etc.), someone with an incredible accomplishment (ex. Malala) etc. Your background is not a hook but it could make for an interesting essay or something along those lines.
A URM is African American, Hispanic, and southeast Asian at the University where I work
I see a lot of things that would give you a preference (maybe even a strong preference), but not a hook.
I guess I don’t really understand what a “hook” is.
You will be considered an URM, which is like a hook.
Being a refugee itself is not a hook, but can give you a good essay material. But, sob stories never work. Like most of previous posters with experience, focus on your merits.
Also, if you are applying for engineering major, Brown University is, while a wonderful school, may not be the best fit.
@paul2752 my essays aren’t really trying to make it into a sob story. Of course things in my life haven’t been so great (ie. family members killed because of the war, my mom lost sight in one of her eyes because of a bombing) but I don’t mention those things at all. I mean, I’m not special for being an immigrant, and it’s not like it was my choice to come to the US but of course it impacted me and the person that I’ve become. I tried to focus more on that.
As for Brown’s fit for me, although I am applying as an engineering major I’ve always been a little left brained and right brained and I have interests ranging from the physical sciences to the humanities. I love to write and I love studying history and government and stuff like that. I think that Brown is a great fit for me because the open curriculum allows me to pursue an engineering degree while at the same time pursue my other interests. Plus, it’s not like Brown’s engineering programs are bad; it’s still Brown. I’m applying for biomedical engineering and I personally like how that program is smaller. I would rather go to a school like Brown rather than a science-heavy school like WPI or MIT etc. So I personally think that Brown fits me pretty well.
A good number of high achieving refugees will have tippy top targets, so that’s not a conventional hook. Your interest in the Brown curriculum will help and is well articulated here.
@lookingforward I guess that’s good since I articulated it much better in my essays!
Not in this case. I can’t think of any college where Middle/Near Eastern is considered URM for admissions purposes.
Unless prohibited by law, a college can make its own determination of what is a URM and how much of a bump, if any, it will play in the admissions process. Common definitions include African-American, Hispanic/Latin@, Native American/Alaskan/Hawaiian.
Note that on the application, there is no box that says “Check here if you are URM.” You fill out your info, and the colleges choose how to use it.
I’m a purist, so to me a hook is: you were either born with insane athletic ability/as a URM/into a family that has legacy and/or donates a lot of money to the school and/or are celebrities.
Anyway, as others have mentioned, while your experience is not a hook, it can make for a strong essay topic. Good luck.
Fwiw, there are schools at which Asian is URM although at many others, Asian is ORM. The u means underrepresented, so is specific to each school.
I would expect that your experience will make you stand out.
Definition is kind of squishy. Think of it as an attribute that the college considers valuable beyond ordinary evaluation of personal/academic merit in the normal admission process.
The usual examples:
A. Relation to a huge donor or other important prominent person.
B. Recruited athlete (i.e. seen as a must have for the college’s team, rather than the sport achievement being seen as a high end extracurricular accomplishment in the normal admissions evaluation).
C. Legacy (relation to alumni).
D. URM (however defined by the college).
Note that not all colleges consider all of the above (particularly C and D). Also, the effect is commonly much greater for A and B over C and D.