URM Status

I'm half caucasian, half hispanic and will be applying to Med school next year. Anyone heard the pros and cons of not reporting minority status? Can URM staus hurt your chances at acceptance to Medical School?

You've gotta be kidding me.

why the heck would u not want to tell them u are URM. the only word that comes to my mind is "magnoona" - meaning CRAZY

You claim it and cover it heavily in your essays, simple as that. Absoluely no reason you shouldn't.

Originally posted by beasley:
•I'm half caucasian, half hispanic and will be applying to Med school next year. Anyone heard the pros and cons of not reporting minority status? Can URM staus hurt your chances at acceptance to Medical School?•

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The only way I can think of that it could hurt your status is if you claim to be disadvantaged and aren't. I really like the way the AMCAS application (Whooooaaaa -- now there's a sentence I've never typed before!!!) separates the ethnic, racial and disadvantaged questions out, so if you're actually an ethnic or racial minority but NOT disadvantaged, you don't have to agonize over how checking that box might imply that you are.

BTW, you can claim to be both Hispanic (ethnic question) and Caucasian (racial question) on the AMCAS app. See? No decision at all to make. Then just be honest about whether or not you've been disadvantaged in any way.

only mexican-americans and mainland puerto ricans are considered URMs. any other hispanic ethnicity is NOT. so unless you're specifically mexican or puerto rican, claiming hispanic ethnicity won't likely have any affect on your application.

you can be a nonURM and still be disadvantaged, so URM status and being disadvantaged aren't the same thing and you don't have to claim one thing to legitimately be the other.

As far as checking URM status, I think it can hurt your app, if you don't look/act the part. I.e. don't check URM if you can't even speak Spanish. My premed advisor told me about an applicant from our schools who was South African and 100% white and checked URM. Medical schools felt this person was being dishonest and he didn't get in to any schools. I'm bi-racial too and I checked both. I think it's important to represent yourself honestly or at least to choose what you feel most comfortable with to describe yourself. Me, I'm proud of my mixed race backgound. I think it will be an interesting topic in interviews. My vote...put both.

Well, the thing is...you kind of have to put both because of how the AMCAS is organized. I'm pretty sure the race that the majority of people of Mexican-American ethnicity identify with is white. And as far as language goes, that's a seperate area on the application. Serpiente, how do you know this is specifically why your friend was not accepted? Something like 58% of people are rejected completely each year and I doubt the majority of those are related to disputed URM status...

Originally posted by none:
•Serpiente, how do you know this is specifically why your friend was not accepted? Something like 58% of people are rejected completely each year and I doubt the majority of those are related to disputed URM status...•

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I agree... Seems like Adcoms would jump all over a foreigner. Must have been some other underlying reason.

None and dustin, I'm sure there WERE other issues involved. I didn't know the person and honestly don't know anything else about the story.I just thought it was credible because of the source--a premed advisor who told me that story when I was talking to him about the multiracial dilemma. However the point he was making was that schools were expecting to meet a "black" South African and were very suprised upon interviewing this individual, and perhaps felt mislead.If other apsects of this person's app weren't all there maybe that pushed him into the reject pile. I don't know. It was a bad example maybe. Sorry.
Anyway, back to the original question,
I just wanted to make the point that it never hurts to present yourself for what you are.I feel I have been influenced by both my parent's cultures so I choose to represent myself that way. I feel it is silly to have to choose one thing over another and the AMCAS application does not force you to do that anyway as SMW pointed out. Just an opinion from someone who has been there.

I actually wrote one of my essays about how I was stressing over which box to check until I discovered that AMCAS had so wisely separated the issues.

Thought you'd never live to see the day that the word wise was associated with AMCAS, right? 😉

This is completely off-topic but SMW I've always wanted to ask you what Anchorage is like (I'd email you privately, but I can't). I've always wanted to visit Alaska!

Well, how do you identify yourself? My father was married to an Asian woman before he married my mother. While married to the Asian woman, he had two kids (my brother and sister). They appear Asian, but were raised by my biological mother and our father...both Caucasian. To my knowledge, they have always checked the Caucasian box. They haven't rejected their Asian ancestry, rather they identify more with their Caucasian background. Were you raised by both of your biological parents?

I know Asians are not URMs. I'm just trying to relate.

i don't think we're all talking about the same thing here. minority status is not necessarily the same as URM status, and URM status is not necessarily the same as disadvantaged status. there is no requirement that you must speak spanish if you check a hispanic box. i'm south american and don't speak a word of spanish, but i'm happy to check the box for my ethnicity (which does not have URM status). why? because i'm damn proud of everything that i am. i'm polish too but don't speak a word of THAT language, yet no one would ever think of questioning my polish heritage based on my lack of ability to speak the polish language. there is a certain double standard in the perception here.

regarding the controversy with serpiente's premed advisor's story, we're talking about a different situation. the box for black applicants is now often designated 'african american' because that is now the politically correct term for blacks. so even though there are 'white' residents of the continent of africa, what this box is trying to represent are people who are of black african heritage, as AA was initially implemented as a method of slave reparations (it grew to include other minority ethnicities in this country). therefore, white south african is not 'african american' as affirmative action defines it. that is probably why this person came under fire, because they were misrepresenting themselves for the sake of AA. if the box said 'black' instead of 'african american', this person wouldn't have marked it.

besides, as someone else mentioned, beasley's issue is actually a non-issue. hispanic ethnicities aren't races anyway, and the AMCAS app was altered to reflect this. it first asks you whether or not you have hispanic heritage; then it asks you if what race you are. so there is no issue of trying to decide what you want to be, because the app is designed to let you mark both.

self-identification is exactly that: self-identification. how you want to define yourself and what box you want to check is entirely a personal issue.

Originally posted by E'01:
•This is completely off-topic but SMW I've always wanted to ask you what Anchorage is like (I'd email you privately, but I can't). I've always wanted to visit Alaska!•

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Anchorage is awesome, if a little cold and dark half the year, but the long-light summers make up for it. Only about 250,000 people, clean air and water, decent cultural amenities (restaurants somewhat lacking), spectacular scenery (even from in town), fantastic fishing, wilderness 30 minutes away in all directions, plus Alaska has no income tax and they give us money (oil dividends) for living here. 😀 😀 😀

You really should come on up and see for yourself.

HELP! I know this is a really old thread, but its sort of addresses my problem. I'm half white, half puerto rican, and I submitted to amcas over a month ago. I put my ethnicity as puero rican on that part, but for race I declined to respond. All through grade school and college I've always put hispanic because the answer for white was always white (not-Hispanic). So I just didn't answer because none of them seemed to fit. Seriously, when I submitted to AMCAS, I didn't know how HUGE of a deal this URM thing is! I really didn't think that race/ethnicity would be THAT big of a deal. Now I've been reading up on it and I'm worried. Are they gonna look negatively on my declining to respond when they see I'm half white? Are they gonna think I'm just trying to mooch the URM thing? I know there's not much I can do to change it now, but I'm worried. Any thoughts???

beasley, which hispanic ethnicity? This makes a difference because if you are peruvian, for example, you are not considered a URM.

serpiente said:

As far as checking URM status, I think it can hurt your app, if you don't look/act the part. I.e. don't check URM if you can't even speak Spanish. My premed advisor told me about an applicant from our schools who was South African and 100% white and checked URM. Medical schools felt this person was being dishonest and he didn't get in to any schools. I'm bi-racial too and I checked both. I think it's important to represent yourself honestly or at least to choose what you feel most comfortable with to describe yourself. Me, I'm proud of my mixed race backgound. I think it will be an interesting topic in interviews. My vote...put both.

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If a mexican american doesnt speak spanish then dont chek that you are mexican american... that is ludicrous.... I don't speak spanish b/c my parents were americanized yet they speak spanish and I don't. My grandparents are from mexico and that is why my parents and their brothers and sisters speak spanish but zero of my ten cousins speak any spanish even though they are full mexican american because my cousins and I grew up in america fully americanized.... BTW my parents and their brothers and sisters went to segregated schools in the 1950's b/c of their mexican heritage, yet I can't claim my heritage because I don't speak spanish fluently, but can only pick out certain words?

This thread is five years old. The person who bumped it has already reposted the question in a different thread, so I'm closing this one.