Do colleges treat South-East Asian Americans the same as East Asian Americans?

I’m asking this because South-East Asian Americans tend to have family roots in South-East Asian countries, like Vietnam, which are developing, third-world countries. South-East Asian countries are also so much poorer than East Asians countries, so people from South-East Asian countries are generally refugees fleeing from poverty and/or war, not rich, wealthy immigrants like East Asians from China or Korea.

Do colleges take this into account, or do they just bluntly view all Asians as just Asians? If so, that isn’t too fair as I know so many disadvantaged South-East Asians whose families have fled from wars and are still so low on the socioeconomic ladder that placing them in a race with East Asian families who have been rich all their lives would be insane.

It’s a bit like putting Syrian refugees under the category of “White” when they’re obviously disadvantaged. South-East Asians aren’t privileged at all compared to East Asians, so do colleges view them differently?

You’re mistaking the fact that 90% of colleges simply admit students based upon academic metrics regardless of race/ethnicity.

If you happen to apply to the small handful that practice holistic admissions, those that might know the difference between a Hmong first gen applicant over the princeling offspring of a Shanghai billionaire – then you’re still good, right?

I disagree that there’s widespread, so-called anti-asian bias. But that’s just me (I’m an Asian American (Chinese) alum from a selective school without any “hooks”)

There are many intersections to what colleges consider with applicants, and in addition to race, one of them is class/privilege. So when looking at your application, ideally admissions officers are not just looking at you as an Asian American, but as an Asian American who is not from a privileged background. So that is to say: yes, I do believe they take it into account (some schools, at least), though I can’t definitively state it as I don’t work in admissions. Moreover, admissions are understandably cagey, re: how they use race in admissions anyway. But I would like to think that a seasoned admissions officer knows the difference between a low-income Vietnamese applicant from Westminster and how their background would differ significantly from a Chinese or Korean applicant from Palo Alto.

All you can do is tell your story and present who you are to admissions and hope for the best. If your parents immigrated here after fleeing Vietnam, are highly language dependent/lower income/you have to work a job to help support the family, etc., tell that story.