My name is Anton Santos Gallegos. I grew up in a moderately wealthy neighborhood to a mother who immigrated from Philippines and a father who immigrated from Mexico. To this day my parents have always instilled in me that hard work can get me anywhere as well as that pursuing a college education was necessary. For me envisioning a college education at a higher institution was hard. As daunting as it was seeing the demographic statistics for private schools, I also saw that my chances of getting into a college would be lower than my white counterparts. I came to this realization when applying to high schools were a family friend had told me to check in the box for race that I was only Latinx so that I could have a better chance in comparison to putting Latinx and Asian. That this categorization of myself mattered to schools most, who were higher institutions and that I was not competing with everyone but only other POC students to get into schools and that checking Latinx gave me a higher chance because schools wanted more Latinx students. That this however would not matter to schools that were not as elite because these schools were not as competitive and for some reasons had 99% of students who were POC. For me it’s even harder to understand where I get grouped, and I question if I am solely recruited for diversity or if admissions think differently due to my mixed background. I think affirmative action is important for placing students of color on the same level as their white counterparts. POC students don’t have the same privileges as white students and predominantly come from under resourced schools. However, students should be recruited not solely on grades but in their abilities. The admissions process has a long way to go and it is important to recognize that students of color in the US live in a system that is constantly systematically oppressing them. I believe that colleges need more diversity, admission boards need more diversity, and the people creating laws that pertain to POC should be POC.
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