Bizarre Harvard URM Letter

[darrylkalil]

Hi all,

I'm currently applying in this cycle and got an interesting letter in the mail today from Harvard stating the following

" Your name was selected from the Association of American Medical College’s Medical Minority Applicant Registry
(Med-MAR) which lists recent MCAT scores for self-identified economically disadvantaged or underrepresented minority
students."


However, I definitely did not identify myself as a URM on my application. I am from South Africa and lived there for a part of my life ( which i indicated on my amcas) but I am now living in the states with american/ SA citizenship. I did not put AA on the amcas ( which some people tell me to do but it's not true), i put caucasian. what gives with this letter? i didn't even apply to harvard, but should i now? lol

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[RocknRhoLim]

If you read the letter carefully, they also send recruitment letters to economically disadvantaged. If you indicated this on AMCAS then this is why they sent it to you. I don't know how closely these letters mirror the chances of getting an interview, but if your numbers are along their average, go for it.

 

[AdrianVeidt]

Hi all,

I'm currently applying in this cycle and got an interesting letter in the mail today from Harvard stating the following

" Your name was selected from the Association of American Medical College's Medical Minority Applicant Registry
(Med-MAR) which lists recent MCAT scores for self-identified economically disadvantaged or underrepresented minority
students."


However, I definitely did not identify myself as a URM on my application. I am from South Africa and lived there for a part of my life ( which i indicated on my amcas) but I am now living in the states with american/ SA citizenship. I did not put AA on the amcas ( which some people tell me to do but it's not true), i put caucasian. what gives with this letter? i didn't even apply to harvard, but should i now? lol

did you apply as economically disadvantaged?

 

[GoPelicans]

I got this letter after applying disadvantaged last year non-URM. Didn't result in an interview or anything else. I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[darrylkalil]

my bad, should've clarified more. not economically disadvantaged, not URM (at least how i thought it was defined).....

 

[yellowfish]

These recruitment letters don't really mean anything besides affirming (or in this case, not even that) that you fall into a particular category. They're not personalized, and I wouldn't take them into consideration when deciding where to and where not to apply.

 

[sudo]

These recruitment letters don't really mean anything besides affirming (or in this case, not even that) that you fall into a particular category. They're not personalized, and I wouldn't take them into consideration when deciding where to and where not to apply.

This

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[Lexipi]

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[LizzyM]

They want more minority applicants so that they have some to choose from. Their filtering system may be rough so that a statement like "if place of birth equals [ list of African countries] then URM = 1." will turn up people like the OP who aren't URM but will also find people who did not self-identify as URM out of false modesty but who would add diversity to the class.

These are sent after a rough algorhythm to find anyone who might be URM.

 

[Narmerguy]

these recruitment letters don't really mean anything besides affirming (or in this case, not even that) that you fall into a particular category. They're not personalized, and i wouldn't take them into consideration when deciding where to and where not to apply.

+1.

 

[deleted530324]

Yeah, same here. I got a 33 (8 VR). I suppose my family is impoverished post-2008, but that was the year I graduated, so I didn't necessarily grow up economically disadvantaged.

I guess I'm a bit of an idiot. Turns out I qualify for FAP.

Who's interested in learning to count cards? With the money I'm saving on application fees I can fly us out to Vegas and we can troll blackjack until we have a good story for our Harvard Med interviews.

 

[chillaxbro]

I got the same letter. It was addressed to "Dear Student" 🙄

Did you apply to FAP? That's probably why

 

[thisisansley]

Yeah, I've been getting these emails and letters too, but I'm a middle class white girl so I've just been ignoring them. I think they must transmit some names by mistake.

 

[swallday6400]

Unless your stats are near Harvard or you think you have a realistic chance, its just a email to take your money.

 

[neurodoc]

I don't know what's up with this URM thing today, but if you are not a member of some URM ethnic group (e.g. Hispanic, African-American, NA...and you are ethnically Caucasian, Indian/Pakistani, East-Asian) the "URM" designation will not likely boost your chances of acceptance. When I applied decades ago I was granted an AMCAS "low income" waiver that saved me money on multiple app fees. I was given an interview at UI Chicago based on this status. I wasn't particularly eager to relocate to Chicago as an out-of-state applicant for med school, but I figured I should go for the interview. Well, I had the interview and the African-American doc who interviewed me was pleasant enough and the interview seemed to go well. He was also quite frank in letting me know that he didn't expect me to be a white guy, because I was scheduled as a URM interviewee...I figured that because I was a "financially disadvantaged" applicant I got lumped in with UIC's URM applicants, and it was pretty clear to me that he was not particularly interested in a "financially disadvantaged" but Caucasian applicant. Fortunately I had a few other interviews and got three acceptances to choose from... things may have changed and YMMV.🙂