<p>I saw a thing on CNN last night about colleges. One point of view was that Asian American applicants are held to a much higher standard in college admissions than their caucasian counterparts making it harder for them to get into the selective schools. What are your opinions on this, do you agree? My son (he's a sophomore) will not be applying to colleges for quite awhile but when the time comes he is going to have to check off one of the boxes regarding ethnicity. He is of Korean, Italian, Greek and Finnish ancestory - should he even write down Asian American?
Thanks</p>
<p>Does his name sound asian? If it isn't, then I wouldn't check the Asian box. Better be safe than sorry. I'm Asian myself, and I always have to try EVEN HARDER to make up for deficit placed on my race.</p>
<p>He should be entirely truthful and check off all boxes that apply to him. He may even want to be specific when there is a space to write in what his countries of origin are. Who knows? He might even appear unique (and attractive) as a college applicant due to his multiple backgrounds.</p>
<p>No, his last name is Italian - but most people think it is Spanish. People mistake him for Hispanic all the time here in South Florida.</p>
<p>The ethnicity question is optional and considering your latest post, I think I would not indicate an ethnicity at all if I were your son.</p>
<p>Do all college applications have a place to explain your multiple ethnicities or do you just check off biracial, multiracial or other if you are mixed? And do percentages matter? If you are a quarter Asian as opposed to half or full are you still considered "Asian American"?</p>
<p>It never occurred to me to omit ethnicity on the application? Is this fairly commonplace? Is it a good idea?</p>
<p>It is fine not to indicate one's ethnicity. According to Collegeboard, 15% of students enrolled at Harvard did not report their ethnicity. The ethnicity question on the CommonApp is titled as followed: "OPTIONAL INFORMATION [...] If you wish to be identified with a particular ethnic group, please check all that apply:"
There is no box for multiracial. You would have to check off several individual ethnic origins.</p>
<p>Just check "other"</p>
<p>I don't think it's harder for Asians to get into highly selective schools. I think it's just hard for ALL asians to get into highly selective schools. Asian-Americans are only 5 percent of the population but represent about 15 percent of many entering classes at the top universities. It's almost like they are competing for a predetermined space in the class.</p>
<p>sdong, when you check "other" you have to explain yourself in an additional space ["If 'Other', please specify:"].</p>
<p>he's of mixed race, so you can check the other/mixed box, or you can leave the race section blank.</p>
<p>My son has just informed me that on his AP tests he took this week he checked off caucasian as his race and he is not sure but he may have checked off asian or other when he signed up for his SAT subject tests or when he took his PSAT earlier this year....what problems will this cause later down the line when he applies to school? Different races checked off on different things?</p>
<p>I doubt that colleges use this information from the score reports. They don't pay attention to self-reported grades or extra-curricular involvement on the score reports either.</p>
<p>I think you worry too much. That is just very minor stuff, I doubt that colleges make sure what you check on the AP test and on the college appilcation matches. I think this is an optional field so you can leave it without marking. But if you were to do it, just make sure it's accurate, I mean otherwise why bother marking it. It's useless.
I also think your son could even mark all caucasian and that would be no problem either, if that is the race he is identified with. Either race does not give you any leg up or down in the admission game.</p>
<p>Colleges don't look at what you check off in the race category for standardized tests. They look at what you check off in the Common Application (or their specialized application for the school).</p>
<p>America talks about equality! when the colleges do this there should be a case filed about racial discrimination its just unfair who cares what race your are we are all human</p>
<p>Actually there already has been a case filed,remember Jian Li and Princeton?</p>
<p>Yeah, there is racism in America, but don't be shocked; it's everywhere else in the world too.</p>
<p>Actually i heard, maybe just hearsay, that if you leave the box blank, they basically treat you as if you were asian. </p>
<p>Because no college wants gross over representation of any ethnic group so in order to avoid that they have to take into account that a certain percentage of asians leave the box blank, so they essentially evaluate that a certain percentage of blank box applications as if they were Asian canidates. </p>
<p>I don't know if anybody else has ever heard this before but it sounds logical, the adcoms ARE pretty smart...</p>
<p>and it's not really racism, its equal representation. The colleges are just trying to spread higher education equally among all groups.---but i can see how it can feel unfair.</p>