Possible Consquences about lying that you are a URM?

[sc3pt0r]

Also, do you really think that someone who has finished college, finished law school, and is now looking for a job as an attorney needs further assistance from AA?  I mean, seriously, shouldn't the assistance be to some kid whose SAT score was a little lower than someone else's, but has demonstratively worked his ass off?

[queencruella]

Yeah that's a good question.  If everything else is equal in the two candidates application, the caucasian would get a slightly better chance.  It's just that the average LSAT score for asians is higher than caucasians (seems that way for all standardized test)...I will try to find the link and post it.  I honestly don't know why the averages are different here.  Anyways, law schools try to maintain certain ratios between all minorities, so what ends up happening is you end up competing against your own race.  For something very anecdotal - Here is something from wikipedia that shows SAT scores (it's almost 10 years old though) 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:1995-SAT-Income2.png

I seriously doubt it. I have two Asian friends who had middling stats and ended up not only getting into those schools but getting large scholarships. At worst, I think Asians get lumped in with caucasians.

[queencruella]

It's possible that your two asisan friends had something stellar about their application.  This is not a blanket statement that every Asian is at a disadvantage 100% of the time.  Maybe they had an awesome PS or extraordinary soft factors.  I'm just saying that the average scores for Asians are higher than other races, which will tend to hurt rather than help an asian candidate, as the Asian candidate will be compared to the rest of the Asian pool in the respective law school. Just as African American admits are not compared to the average caucasian, but rather the average African American applicant - the same thing goes with Asians.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I don't know why any school would say no to upping their overall percentage of minorities while keeping up their median LSAT score as well.

I'm not basing my conclusion solely on my two friends either. There are plenty of schools that quite simply lack minorities generally and being Asian is not going to hurt you one bit in those situations.

[queencruella]

I don't think diversity is achieved by having a certain % be a minority as the sole criteria.....I'm sure everyone can agree that 50% White and 50% Asian would NOT be a diverse student population LOL....

Lots of schools are in areas that are not diverse at all. If they took minorities based on the overall population of the surrounding area they'd have 5% minorities. It's far better for a school to have 15% minorities with a 10% Asian population than a 5% minority class that represented the area makeup.

I went to a magnet program in high school that was put at a certain school to bring UP the amount of white people at the school and even that program still had a very high percentage of Asians.

[sc3pt0r]

I think there are many, many factors that go into admitting students.

GPA
LSAT
PS
Work Experience
Difficulty of Major
Extracurriculars
Any addendum to the app

I'm sure that I had relatively low scores compared to the average "white" student (3.33 GPA, 157 LSAT).  Interestingly enough, I attended a Historically Black University (Texas Southern).  I elected not to answer the questions regarding race.  It is quite possible that the schools I was accepted to (Houston, Miami, Arkansas, Texas Tech, South Texas, Oklahoma) were impressed by the other factors in my application, including the fact that I had the highest LSAT score by a student at my university in 3 years.  Or, they may have assumed that I was a minority since I attended Texas Southern.  I'd be interested in finding this info out.  

I didn't lie on the applications, I was just selective about the optional information that I could have provided.  I chose not to put the information regarding my race.  On the apps that optionally asked for my parents information, I chose to put the fact that my mother was incarcerated.  I chose NOT to put the information regarding my dad being a lawyer.  

[sc3pt0r]

I went to a magnet program in high school that was put at a certain school to bring UP the amount of white people at the school and even that program still had a very high percentage of Asians.

That's funny...I went to a school where I was 1 of 3 non-black students.  I also went to a school (in Japan) where I was the only non-Japanese student.  Then, I chose to go to a historically black university for undergrad. 

I am going to Univ. of Houston in the fall (73% white).  I may experience "culture shock!"

[queencruella]

I went to a magnet program in high school that was put at a certain school to bring UP the amount of white people at the school and even that program still had a very high percentage of Asians.

That's funny...I went to a school where I was 1 of 3 non-black students.  I also went to a school (in Japan) where I was the only non-Japanese student.  Then, I chose to go to a historically black university for undergrad. 

I am going to Univ. of Houston in the fall (73% white).  I may experience "culture shock!"

Were you super popular in Japan? I worked in a Japanese school for 2 years and we had an American exchange student who was treated like a rockstar. Girls literally swooned when he walked into the room. Needless to say he loved it.

[sc3pt0r]

I'm popular everywhere I go! 

Kidding aside, yes I did receive a lot of attention.  I lived in Kyoto, so there were quite a few tourists.  However, when I stayed for a few weeks in Oita, a much smaller city, and definitely not a center of tourism, I received MUCH more attention.  In fact, a small boy ran up and touched me while I was on my bicycle.  It startled me, and I actually fell off the bike.  Hilarious! 

[queencruella]

I'm popular everywhere I go! 

Kidding aside, yes I did receive a lot of attention.  I lived in Kyoto, so there were quite a few tourists.  However, when I stayed for a few weeks in Oita, a much smaller city, and definitely not a center of tourism, I received MUCH more attention.  In fact, a small boy ran up and touched me while I was on my bicycle.  It startled me, and I actually fell off the bike.  Hilarious! 

Once I was waiting at my bus stop and one little girl who walked by me everyday was staring and ran into a telephone pole. I had been expecting this for months so it made my day. Luckily the little girl was equally amused. I also went to visit friends on a small island and went to a local sports competition for kids. One two-year-old there kept running up to me and touching me every few minutes. It was so adorable.

[sc3pt0r]

That is awesome!  Japan was a great experience.  I lived there for a year with my dad.  He was teaching English in the JET program for two years before he went to law school.  I moved in with him when he started law school.  After he finished, he worked for a legal unit at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto.  Hence, my reasons for living in Kyoto.  I attended an all-Japanese school, which really screwed my grades up (my classes were in Japanese, except English class, I made an 'A' in that), but taught me a lot about life, and myself.