Quick little race box question

[ShipItHolla]

Im a mixture of many backgrounds, one of which is African, but most of which are about as white as can be.


What is the call with the check box?

Am I allowed to check both white and African?


I'd certainly feel weird checking just the African box, but, I mean, lets be honest, I wouldnt mind getting that URM boost.

[mrdunson]

I think it'd be a pretty honest thing to check both and see what schools say after you apply. 

[Money, baby]

Call a school, pose the question, see what they say.

[dbgirl]

Im a mixture of many backgrounds, one of which is African, but most of which are about as white as can be.


What is the call with the check box?

Am I allowed to check both white and African?


I'd certainly feel weird checking just the African box, but, I mean, lets be honest, I wouldnt mind getting that URM boost.

I'm mixed, and I check multiple boxes or decline to state.
However, with hindsight being 20/20, I probably should have worried less about my personal and social identity and more about scholarship $$$.  I applied to a school, for example, where every minority with my numbers got $$ - some lots - I got a nice letter saying "you can borrow $50k/year".  So, if you're looking for money and/or some other boost, I'm not sure admitting to being "watered down" by whiteness is a good idea.

[Statin]

Im a mixture of many backgrounds, one of which is African, but most of which are about as white as can be.


What is the call with the check box?

Am I allowed to check both white and African?


I'd certainly feel weird checking just the African box, but, I mean, lets be honest, I wouldnt mind getting that URM boost.

There are no set in stone rules for how much of a percentage (one eigth, one quarter, one half) of a certain minority actually constitutes being that minority, and for a law school to implement such a policy would be laughable.  It's not their job to play ethnicity police.  Furthermore, law schools have an incentive to inflate minority numbers, so how does it really hurt them?

The only scare tactic that I ever see used is the "You will fail the bar review's character and fitness/background check/whatever review": Good luck finding evidence of that ever happening.  Like law schools, who is the bar review to say what percentage one must be to become a minority?

The only time I could see serious repercussions would be in the case of outright fraud-- claiming that you are an ethnicity when you in fact don't have a lick of it in you.

So feel free to go ahead and click on whatever box you wish if you feel it will give you an advantage; we're not saving the manatees here...

[walkaway]

If your ratio of africanness has affected the way you experience the world, it is entirely fine to put it. May even be fine to put it, if it hasn't affected the way you experience the world.

[DDBY]

If you can prove it do it. If you can't, well, do what your instinct tell you.