Scholarships from Ancestry

[HBeth]

Hi, I spend my day in high school with many college bound or "thinking about it" kids. We have had several discussions lately about pinning down ancestry through DNA or any other legal method to take advantage of college quotas. Several students are contacting the Bureau of Indian Affairs but I am personally interested in the DNA issue. I googled around and found many sites that offer DNA testing for ancestry but do not believe they would hold up to scrutiny. Specific ideas and leads to "REAL" ancestry testing would be appreciated. Hille

[John Bear]

What an intriguing topic. Are there commonly-accepted standards for defining members of a quota group, or does each admissions office have its own?

When Mariah and I were doing research for our Finding Money for College book, our sense of things was that ethnic quotas and ethnic awards were socially defined. A Norwegian child adoped into and raised by a Romanian family (in Bucharest or Chicago) qualified for scholarships from the Romanian Friendship Society, or equivalent.

(If Tiger Woods decides to go back and finish at Stanford, would he qualify for an award from the Thai-American Friendship Society?)

[HBeth]

Hi Dr. Bear and All, I will continue my research and hope someone else has time and interest to pursue this. I will update this post if I find any leads. Hille

[uncle janko]

Something about this really bothers me, espcially the line about "real ancestry testing". No one is more aware of yichus than I. Having had my ancestry checked for Jews by racially degenerate millists (sadly, there are no Jews, and I know my ancestry back into the early 1500's), ancestry-based scholarships complete with testing just strike me as meretricious and reminiscent of the Ahnenerbe.

Having said that, I sincerely hope that your kid gets lots and lots of financial aid through other sources, lavished upon him, full measure, pressed down, and running over. Very best wishes to you in your money search!

Janko

[HBeth]

Good Morning, Please move my post to discussion area or grants and scholarships. Thanks. HBeth aka Hille

[Guest]

After spending all these years in school (over 25) I'm truly wondering what anyone really checks on.

Examples:
* Nobody has ever asked for my marriage certificate at a university to prove that I am married.
* Nobody has ever asked for my DD-214 at a university to prove that I am a veteran. (the VA asked for it though.)
* Nobody has ever asked for my birth certificate or passport at a univeristy to prove that I am a citizen. I presented an International Immunization Record at this last U and it didn't cause them pause to ask "where are you from"?
* Nobody has ever asked for an audited financial statement (other than self-reported) to prove my financial position (except that I have provided tax returns for "verification")
* Nobody has ever asked for DNA (or any other evidence) at a university to prove my ethnicity.
* I've never had to prove my residency to a University short of self-reporting. Proving my residency to Equifax (to correct thier error) was a major PITA.

* When my wife and I got married in March 2000 in the NC mountains, she was asked her ethnicity on the the marriage licence application. She replied "Native American, Cherokee" - her self-reporting was the extent of any verification.

* We have at this U unfavorable parking for freshman students -- a young friend, when asked while getting his parking permit, simply claimed to be a sophomore. Nobody checked.

I'm not advocating that people lie -- but it would appear to me that self-reporting an error is an easy process in our university system.

In this century, in this country, ethnicity is not defined by law. It used to be -- that was bad by most people's standards.

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As for using OxfordAncestors or AncestryDNA and the like to determine ethnicity, one must remember that our ancestry is not as simple as that in most cases. Doing a check on Y-DNA or mtDNA will only return results for one lineal branch of our family tree. It's possible for that result to be very different than our self-reported ethnicity or even our phenotypic ethnicity.

Having students complete a four or five generation ancestry chart would offer more information about the student's ancestry -- but that doesn't establish ethnicity either. It can make the student more aware of where he came from though, not a bad thing.

At the 5th generation beyond the student there are:
1 student
2 parents
4 grandparents
8 great-grandparents
16 great-great grandparents
===
30 contributors to that student's "ancestry"

add just two more generations and:
32 3rd great grandparents
64 4th great grandparents
===
126 contributors to that student's ancestry

If we assume birth of child at 21 years old (an assumption capable of wide variation) for a child born in 1990, we have:
1990 child
1970 parents
1950 grandparents
1930 great-grandparents
1910 great-great grandparents
1890 3rd great grandparents
1870 4th great grandparents

Six generations at 100 years. An awful lot of history in there to look at... In my family, 4 generations made 100 years.

If you subscribe to the old "one drop rule" -- at 6 generations beyond ourself, most of us can claim to be 1/126 "anything we want".