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[pamplemoose]

I am a female minority applying to Ph.D programs in a social science.  Do committees care about the race of the applicant?  Some schools asked for a diversity essay, and I only talked about race in passing (I'm not for AA based on race, or rather, I think race if it is a factor should not be weighted as heavily as class; otherwise the Black students, at least at elite institutions, end up being predominantly sons and daughters of African diplomats or other elite families).  But I did talk about poverty and the reasons why my experiences with it a) contributed to lackluster grades the first 2.5 years of college (I went from a 3.0 to a 3.9) and b) how I think my diverse experiences have given me a perspective which may be rare in the academy.

Anyway, my question really is, will committees take all this into consideration when evaluating certain unusual aspects of my record?

(my apologies for the cross-post in the diversity forum, but I'm new here and realized this might be the better place to post such a question.  also i hope this isn't going to invite a discussion about AA...i'm really just asking for personal reasons.)

thanks!

[onestep]

It depends.  Some places do care about race.  Other places don't.  In still other places they cannot even utter the applicants' race or gender, regardless of whether they value those characteristics or not (e.g. in Michigan after Prop. 2).

[ahhh_history]

At the university where I worked as a staff member in an academic department, it only really seemed to matter for borderline candidates: 

"Hu has a 2.98, but is black/hispanic/non-white so we should admit hu anyway."  (This necessitated a special letter to the grad school, since it was the university's policy that grad students had to come in with at least a 3.0.  The letter pretty much said what I've quoted above, and the grad school never said no to this.)

"Hu is okay, but in an area where we otherwise have a glut of applicants.  We should admit hu because is (minority)." 

This was not a highly competitive program/dept. (at least for the grad programs), so for a minority applicant with a 3.9 and stunning letters of rec, it wouldn't have mattered.  I suspect that at competitive depts. it may matter more. 

How do they know?  Sometimes the optional "survey" page of the app makes it to the committee, or they know because they've met hu, or hu brings it up in app, or a lor mentions it, or. . .

[roarheels]

My doctoral program recently advertised to its students that our cohort of active graduate students is comprised of 50% minorities (though this is very loosely defined at my institution).  So I would say that it seems to matter to our admissions committee a great deal. We have 200 fully funded grads, so this is not a small program. In addition, I would suggest that any applicant play up whatever advantage he/she may have. Admissions to PhD programs are so difficult these days that it strikes me as unusual not to press your diversity. Ask yourself how many professors that you have ever had who were brought up and educated in the same settings you were? If you find that most were not, then you have a credible argument for why you bring diversity to the table.