Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sara Harberson just posted an article that suggests referencing race or culture might cause parts of your application to be “thrown out.” She’s drawing this conclusion because Harvard told their interviewers not to make note of a student’s race, ethnicity or national origin.

Really? If a kid is a member of the Chinese cultural club (and lusted as an EC), the application will be thrown out?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sara Harberson just posted an article that suggests referencing race or culture might cause parts of your application to be “thrown out.” She’s drawing this conclusion because Harvard told their interviewers not to make note of a student’s race, ethnicity or national origin.

Really? If a kid is a member of the Chinese cultural club (and lusted as an EC), the application will be thrown out?

you can say they were a member of a cultural club, but you just can’t specify which culture, which country etc. similarly if kid mentions being a refugee family, immigrant family, having to learn a new language, translate for family members, we can mention that. but can not specify which country, which race, which language. I’m a Harvard alum and sat in on the zoom training session. This is directly what the AOs stated.

This is really sad. Students are not being viewed as their authentic selves, but as numbers and scores.

My daughter is of Hispanic origin with a 1550+ ACT and top 10% of her class. She is applying to top schools and in some essays where it was prompted, she exposes her heritage in a fun and entertaining way. She probably did it in most of her applications. I expect this is the golden ticket these days...URM with strong scores, great essays, and ECs. Our private counselor encouraged her to do this and thinks Sara is giving very bad guidance that should be nuanced.

If you have a student with strong scores, you should be fine sharing race. It's only if you are test optional or scores below the middle 50% that you should consider leaving that information out. A student's application stands on its own with strong stats and the sharing of heritage gives it a nice little boost.

FWIW, one of UMD's questions is about culture.

Something about the way you say that about the golden ticket…. 🤦‍♀️

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sara Harberson just posted an article that suggests referencing race or culture might cause parts of your application to be “thrown out.” She’s drawing this conclusion because Harvard told their interviewers not to make note of a student’s race, ethnicity or national origin.

Really? If a kid is a member of the Chinese cultural club (and lusted as an EC), the application will be thrown out?

you can say they were a member of a cultural club, but you just can’t specify which culture, which country etc. similarly if kid mentions being a refugee family, immigrant family, having to learn a new language, translate for family members, we can mention that. but can not specify which country, which race, which language. I’m a Harvard alum and sat in on the zoom training session. This is directly what the AOs stated.

This is really sad. Students are not being viewed as their authentic selves, but as numbers and scores.

My daughter is of Hispanic origin with a 1550+ ACT and top 10% of her class. She is applying to top schools and in some essays where it was prompted, she exposes her heritage in a fun and entertaining way. She probably did it in most of her applications. I expect this is the golden ticket these days...URM with strong scores, great essays, and ECs. Our private counselor encouraged her to do this and thinks Sara is giving very bad guidance that should be nuanced.

If you have a student with strong scores, you should be fine sharing race. It's only if you are test optional or scores below the middle 50% that you should consider leaving that information out. A student's application stands on its own with strong stats and the sharing of heritage gives it a nice little boost.

FWIW, one of UMD's questions is about culture.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sara Harberson just posted an article that suggests referencing race or culture might cause parts of your application to be “thrown out.” She’s drawing this conclusion because Harvard told their interviewers not to make note of a student’s race, ethnicity or national origin.

Really? If a kid is a member of the Chinese cultural club (and lusted as an EC), the application will be thrown out?

you can say they were a member of a cultural club, but you just can’t specify which culture, which country etc. similarly if kid mentions being a refugee family, immigrant family, having to learn a new language, translate for family members, we can mention that. but can not specify which country, which race, which language. I’m a Harvard alum and sat in on the zoom training session. This is directly what the AOs stated.

This is really sad. Students are not being viewed as their authentic selves, but as numbers and scores.

My daughter is of Hispanic origin with a 1550+ ACT and top 10% of her class. She is applying to top schools and in some essays where it was prompted, she exposes her heritage in a fun and entertaining way. She probably did it in most of her applications. I expect this is the golden ticket these days...URM with strong scores, great essays, and ECs. Our private counselor encouraged her to do this and thinks Sara is giving very bad guidance that should be nuanced.

If you have a student with strong scores, you should be fine sharing race. It's only if you are test optional or scores below the middle 50% that you should consider leaving that information out. A student's application stands on its own with strong stats and the sharing of heritage gives it a nice little boost.

FWIW, one of UMD's questions is about culture.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sara Harberson just posted an article that suggests referencing race or culture might cause parts of your application to be “thrown out.” She’s drawing this conclusion because Harvard told their interviewers not to make note of a student’s race, ethnicity or national origin.

Really? If a kid is a member of the Chinese cultural club (and lusted as an EC), the application will be thrown out?

you can say they were a member of a cultural club, but you just can’t specify which culture, which country etc. similarly if kid mentions being a refugee family, immigrant family, having to learn a new language, translate for family members, we can mention that. but can not specify which country, which race, which language. I’m a Harvard alum and sat in on the zoom training session. This is directly what the AOs stated.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sara Harberson just posted an article that suggests referencing race or culture might cause parts of your application to be “thrown out.” She’s drawing this conclusion because Harvard told their interviewers not to make note of a student’s race, ethnicity or national origin.

Really? If a kid is a member of the Chinese cultural club (and lusted as an EC), the application will be thrown out?

you can say they were a member of a cultural club, but you just can’t specify which culture, which country etc. similarly if kid mentions being a refugee family, immigrant family, having to learn a new language, translate for family members, we can mention that. but can not specify which country, which race, which language. I’m a Harvard alum and sat in on the zoom training session. This is directly what the AOs stated.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sara Harberson just posted an article that suggests referencing race or culture might cause parts of your application to be “thrown out.” She’s drawing this conclusion because Harvard told their interviewers not to make note of a student’s race, ethnicity or national origin.

Really? If a kid is a member of the Chinese cultural club (and lusted as an EC), the application will be thrown out?

Anonymous wrote:Sara Harberson just posted an article that suggests referencing race or culture might cause parts of your application to be “thrown out.” She’s drawing this conclusion because Harvard told their interviewers not to make note of a student’s race, ethnicity or national origin.

Anonymous wrote:I just listened to three AOs the other day talking about this. Diversity is still very important and they want kids to talk about any kind of diversity they will bring to campus.

The one thing I never got about Sara was that she refused to let Jewish kids discuss their religious background in essays because AOs would hold it against them. But she always encouraged the other people to do that, especially the South Asian kids. It always felt like she was protecting the former category but didn’t care about the latter. I would not listen to Sara on race/religion. In fact there are a few things sge says that I would take with a grain of salt. I hear she’s offering consulting services to high schools these days? Probably muddying up the school profile so the rich stay rich?

Anonymous wrote:Our DD's private and school counselor said she should not change her common application essay which talks about her identity with a connection to her academic interests/career paths. She is an URM, high stats, lots of leadership, awards, etc. I think the advice of the counselor was that it may be problematic if you were applying to a school where your stats and overall profile were way below the school and you spoke about your background.