Fastest-Growing Ethnic Category at Great Colleges: "Race Unknown"

<p>I would suggest checking "other" and in the explanation box listing your ethnicity and percentage of Native American blood. I don't agree that if you are 1/8 and up NA you can only check that box. As long as you are honest, then you will be fine. Let the colleges themselves do what they want with the information--if the college considers you NA, then so be it.</p>

<p>Part 1 of the USC application makes this an easy answer. On line 15, the form directs you to fill in the boxes with the letters representing different races and says "as many letters as apply." So you'll put three letters representing your true heritage...simple.
Good luck!</p>

<p>If you want to change your common app, you can create an alternative version. All your info will be transferred, and you can change whatever you want.</p>

<p>i'm pretty sure that you can select multipe races if you are multi-racial. the people who told you that you should have put down Native American are joking or uninformed. it would really sucked if you had listened to them and put down Native American and then got asked for tribal identification after you were admitted. :P</p>

<p>EDIT:

[quote]
First off, I being of mixed race, do normal "affirmative action" guidelines even apply? Say if you were in my situation, what would you mark down as your race? I can't simply mark down "Native American" and nothing else, right?

[/quote]

yep AA applies to you. colleges looking to diversify their student body will be all over someone who is chinese, latino, and native american. (depends though: is one parent chinese and then the other latino/native american?)</p>

<p>If he is 1/4 NA or more he certainly doesn't need tribal identification.</p>

<p>^^^
i keep on seeing conflicting information about this subject in the forum. check out this thread: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/403445-does-being-native-american-matter.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/403445-does-being-native-american-matter.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>i'm almost certain that he will need tribal identification regardless...</p>

<p>yeah i think that it would really stand out if you had put it..</p>

<p>MODERATOR NOTE to "The Race Box? What to put!!" thread: </p>

<p>I'll merge this with the FAQ thread on ethnic self-identification on college applications.</p>

<p>Hmm, I understand that checking off "Native American" might help.</p>

<p>But, I am such a small percent Native American that I could never legally prove it. My father is Chinese and my mother is Hispanic with Native American blood. If you really want to get technical, my mother could find Spanish conquistador blood in her family from South America, so I would be part "White" too. </p>

<p>I just don't want to mark down "Native American", and then have colleges question me on that. I have no way to prove it to them, and I don't want to cause any more trouble for myself. Will admissions boards ask me to verify my race? It sounds a little ridiculous to me, but how else would they keep people from making stuff up?</p>

<p>It seems to me that there are two main reasons somebody might decide to decline to identify race:
1. As a matter of principle, you think race shouldn't be considered.
2. You believe that it will somehow benefit you to decline. It seems to me that there is unlikely to be much personal benefit to declining. If you are an URM, then it is pretty clearly in your benefit to identify that fact. The only scenario I can think of in which declining might help you would be (a) you are Asian (b) your name and achievements don't reveal that you are Asian, and you won't be having an interview and (c) it appears to be a disadvantage at the particular school to be Asian as opposed to white. This scenario seems pretty unlikely to me. If you're white, I can't see any possible advantage to declining.
As far as declining on principle, the schools probably don't care that much about your race unless you are URM, so really declining doesn't do much to advance the principle except when URMs do it.</p>

<p>Does anyone agree with me that selecting students based on race is the ultimate unfair dscrimination? Seriously, what is the point of student quotas? Shouldn't selection be based on academics and extracurriculars? I know this seems like a common gripe, but I would like to know what others think.</p>

<p>You might want to try the search feature.</p>

<p>AA also supposedly works in favor of women, so i hope you (OP) are not a female...</p>

<p>That depends a lot on the college. Especially at LACs, that's not true.</p>

<p>I hope a mod shuts down this thread.
Just do a search for AA and you'll find a million responses.
Arguing about it every 2 days on a different thread is pointless and stupid.</p>

<p>It depends. I wish it was based on socioeconomic status thought rather than race.</p>

<p>^ i do too. (and im a urm). but yea, nobody argue on here, we already have enough of those threads.</p>

<p>Wow, you're probably the first person ever to bring up this point! Seriously, so many high school kids have the whole "Just because I'm white, I have less of a chance" mentality and fail to understand Affirmative Actions true purpose.</p>

<p>It's just a dumb system that's even worse because it's poorly implemented. But I got into the school I wanted to go to so I don't really care.</p>

<p>I agree with you completely! OP.</p>

<p>I mean, after keeping a people in slavery for 300 years and giving them equal rights for only 50 years, it's only fair that we judge them on the same level as those who were able to thrive both economically and academically for so much longer. </p>

<p>/sarcasm</p>

<p>ps: this topic has been discussed numerous times...it's getting quite old.</p>