Racial diversity does not necessarily equal cultural diversity. I know lots of rich black students at top law schools who have more in common - culturally - with their rich white counterparts than they do with individuals of the same race who come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. The Declining Significance of Race by William Julius Wilson. I always agreed with his premise that race impacts upper class blacks much less than it impacts lower class blacks. Having lived in the Bronx and Baltimore, I am of the opinion that most rich black kids have very very little in common with the poor kids in the ghetto. Basically.... racial diversity... imo... does not always yield cultural diversity.
Proving you are 'poor' ... your tax returns... and your parents tax returns if you have been claimed any time in the past X number of years. Your assets. Trust funds. Holdings. Etc. You can use all of these indicators to determine who is poor and who is not... imperfect, yes... but still a decent indicator.
On another note, I get so much hatred on my LSN profile its ridiculous....
Damn, I read you whole post without realizing you were a urm, until you mentioned it at the end--You might be right about upper class blacks not having much in common with lower class blacks, but still at least from my experience at undergrad at the University of Maryland (which like a melting pot, probably half the kids are not white) the different races all had some unique cultural styles and values. I know cliques formed around race at College Park, (except for the honors kids, proving a geek is a geek no matter what race) and I always assumed that was at least in part because of cultural differences.
Its hard to measure wealth
1) For example your parents are divorced and say you mom doesn't work, just claim you are a dependent of hers, and you will qualify for all types of AA, even though say your dad is a successful doctor and could easily pay for your college and would if he had to.
2) $50,000 in NYC is worth about the same as $20,000 in a small midwestern town.
3) Seems like it would be easy to lie and hard for the school to catch people.
You get the hatred on your lsn profile because people are worried that any benefit you get really hurts them. They don't understand that AA only affects the very marginal candidates, basically the people at the top of the waitlists. They just complain in your profile because they are doing what all humans do-promoting their self-interest and decrying anything that hurts their self interest-don't look it at as personal, just look at it as another example of how pathetic human nature can be.