<p>I think that Middle Easterns are just as much as a minority as Native Americans or Pacific Islander. Why aren't Middle Easterns counted as their own seperate group instead of being recognized as Caucasian? Anyone?</p>
<p>Because the college population of Middle Eastern people is higher than the relative population of Middle Eastern people in the US</p>
<p>^ So you’re advocating racial quotas…?</p>
<p>^ No, I believe that scales1994 is implying that Middle Easterners are not considered under-represented minorities because they are not under-represented minorities.</p>
<p>I think Jersey13 was referring to the OP rather than scales1994.</p>
<p>^^ Yeah my mistake, I just assumed that the first two posts were discussing AA.</p>
<p>The main problem is the Census, to be honest. Harvard drew its ethnic classifications from the federal government’s ideas of who composes a race. I actually learned about the relative group status and history of Arab-Americans in a class I took last semester (which was good, USW 15, think about it), and if you really want to understand some of the reasons, I could get into them.</p>
<p>Mainly, the fact that the government doesn’t recognize Middle Easterners or Arab-Americans as constituent ethnic groups is behind this. Keep in mind, though, that Harvard might draw its ideas of what a URM is from more than just the classification section of the application.</p>
<p>I forget; is there a field in which an applicant can define their own ethnicity?</p>
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<p>I was thinking of taking that class. How did you like the “real-world” experience that the syllabus talks about? Was it gimmicky or was it well-run?</p>
<p>The “real-world” experience was definitely unique. Visiting and interrogating an organization was interesting, and stimulating. Writing the final paper, based on your findings, really made the course material come alive. The experience itself was a bit thrown-together, and some of the organizations weren’t the most directly relevant to the theme of race, but this will likely change next year. (The class had only planned to have about 30 students, but wound up with 115 – things had to be improvised.) </p>
<p>I’d recommend the class because the material is interesting and the coursework is essentially nonexistent. 25% each for section discussions, a midterm paper, a group final paper based on the organization, and a take-home final.</p>
<p>^Thanks for the response.</p>
<p>Do you get to pick the organization, is it a lottery thing, or is it just randomly assigned?</p>
<p>So because the group is not under represented by the population in the United States , it is not a URM? If African Americans are widely represented why are they considered an URM?</p>
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<p>African Americans are under-represented at top schools relative to their proportion of the US population.</p>
<p>Can you elaborate, I’m not following when you people talk about proportion of the U.S. population to the racial group.</p>
<p>12.9% of the US population is African American. Under-representation would occur if less than 12.9% of the population at top schools is African American; this is the case: at HYP, African American populations range from 7% to 9%.</p>
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<p>Because the census bureau says so :(? You can probably find everything you possibly want to know about race in college admissions in one of those (what number are we on now?) threads titled [“Race</a>” in College Admissions](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/742349-race-college-admissions-faq-discussion-4-a.html]"Race”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/742349-race-college-admissions-faq-discussion-4-a.html) compelled by the helpful super moderator tokenadult. See his post #2.</p>
<p>^^^ Okay, let’s say that Native Americans make up 15% of the US population (they don’t; just an example). If only 10% of Harvard students are Native American, then they are underrepresented.</p>
<p>In other words, if the percentage of students is lower than what you would expect to see if you took many completely random samples from the US population, then the group is underrepresented. If the percentage is higher, they are overrepresented.</p>
<p>I agree that it is somewhat unfair for those from the Middle East. You’re more likely to be a recent immigrant and have a large family if you’re from this area, which means a disproportionately high number of young students who are presumably applying to college, compared to the overall population of Middle Easterners in the U.S. If schools weighed the relative ages of these small ethnic groups, the definition of a URM might* shift.</p>
<p>There aren’t that many mid-easterners here, so why should they be over representing in colleges? Think!</p>
<p>There aren’t that many Native Americans or Pacific Islanders either. Think!</p>
<p>Totally agree but were still classified as Caucasian.</p>