<p>shrink I didn’t mention anywhere about a better shot at UVA did I?</p>
<p>You goof, this is why we told you to change your screen name ;)</p>
<p>lol, well the dream is still running (look up song: running on empty) and I will keep this screen name till I’m denied. Unless maybe if I get into UNC or Gtown then I’ll make a new account but still keep this one 
just incase.</p>
<p>OK, now this thread is on the Hispanic students forum where hopefully some false information and beliefs can be cleared up.</p>
<p>OP,
First read the sticky thread at the top of this forum:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/hispanic-students/641650-hispanic-latino-defined-aka-am-i-hispanic.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/hispanic-students/641650-hispanic-latino-defined-aka-am-i-hispanic.html</a></p>
<p>There you will find:<br>
- Hispanic is a ethnicity and Hispanics can be of any race(s), these are two separate categories.
- You are considered Hispanic by college admission if you consider yourself Hispanic.</p>
<p>There is no set definition for being Hispanic, it varies with the organization, look at the variation:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>College admissions accepts your declaration as Hispanic and does not require any documentation. On the CA, when Hispanic is checked, the drop down menu for ‘country of origin’ says: Central America, Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, South America (excluding Brazil), Spain and Other. </p></li>
<li><p>NHRP requires you to be 1/4 Hispanic to qualify; they don’t consider Portuguese or Brazilians. (Since your mother is half Cuban, you are considered Hispanic by NHRP, regardless of your grandmother-in-law.)</p></li>
<li><p>Hispanic Heritage Awards require you to have one parent that is Hispanic; they accept Portuguese and Brazilians as Hispanic.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Your evaluation about how much being Hispanic will help you with college admissions is extremely simplistic and unrealistic, there many factors involved. See some comments on the link above and here:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/hispanic-students/931488-ivy-league-admissions-nhrps.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/hispanic-students/931488-ivy-league-admissions-nhrps.html</a></p>
<p>As with everything on your college application, if you are honest, you’ll be fine. The facts are that you are 1/4 Hispanic and you identify with your Hispanic heritage, so there is absolutely no reason whatsoever why you shouldn’t mark Hispanic on college applications.</p>
<p>UVA was just a “random guess”, but UVA happens to share that data for black students, so i used it as an example.</p>
<p>Here is the US Census definition of Hispanic/Latino:</p>
<p>The terms “Hispanic” or “Latino” refer to persons who trace their origin or descent to Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Spanish speaking Central and South America countries, and other Spanish cultures. Origin can be considered as the heritage, nationality group, lineage, or country of the person or the person’s parents or ancestors before their arrival in the United States. People who identify their origin as Hispanic or Latino may be of any race.</p>
<p>^^As cited in the link I provided above. And as stated above, that is the definition used by colleges for admissions, but not necessarily by scholarship organizations.</p>
<p>Thanks Entomom for all of the information you put on this board. I have found it very helpful. I find myself increasingly quoting the Census because the country recently went through that process, and the question comes up for me, should a student who does not identify as Latino/Hispanic or whose parents did not put that person down on the Census as Latino/Hispanic then turn around and choose Hispanic for college applications? I realize that a self-identification process would allow someone to adopt heritage or recognize lineage at any time, but is it right for someone to change self-identification when the application is filed? I’m not asking that rhetorically. I think young people should think about those types of questions and work them out. </p>
<p>I think students who suddenly discover Latino heritage also raise questions for admissions offices. If the university is trying to build a diverse pool of admits, is there a problem with defining Hispanic solely in relation to lineage (a student with no connection to culture, etc. but whose one grandparent was Hispanic).</p>
<p>Hi Copterguy,</p>
<p>I very much agree with you that applicants should be honest and should not ‘find’ their ethnicity for the convenience of college applications. My earlier responses were to several misconceptions that I read on the part of the OP and other posters.</p>
<p>First, the question of basing Hispanic ethnicity on the grandmother in-law is moot, because the OP is 1/4 Hispanic via his mother. </p>
<p>Second, I read the OP as honestly being involved in the Hispanic community (post #9 & 16 and their general tone), so I don’t see anything wrong with their marking Hispanic.</p>
<p>Third, the OP had some very skewed views of how much being Hispanic actually affects college admissions.</p>
<p>BillyMc, just to clarify, people from Spain are also considered hispanic. In fact, that’s where the term originates from, the Iberian peninsula. Now, the term has expanded to spanish speakers, even those of germanic ancestry, who were raised in a hispanic community and identify as such. Being Spanish pretty much means you’re hispanic, but hispanic doesn’t mean you’re of Spanish ancestry. </p>
<p>Yeah, I know this is an old post but I had to clarify.</p>
<p>Whoa, Venn diagrams, that takes me back a long ways. That’s OK, except that your definition is not very precise or accurate (there’s a difference), and:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>BillyMc hasn’t been active for almost 2 yrs.</p></li>
<li><p>The point was clarified, see post #24.</p></li>
</ol>