Hi Everyone,
If you decide not to indicate your race on the common app, is there any way for colleges to find out your race?
Sure.
It might be listed on your transcript or SAT report. Your parents’ education/birth place/name might give a clue.
Is this to shield you from being considered part of an over represented group?
But @skieurope is correct. And it probably is not a good idea to be less than truthful on the application. It could cause more questions than you intended.
You certainly don’t want to be untruthful. However, if you don’t believe race should be a factor in college admission and the question is inappropriate, you can leave it blank. Let the AO make a conscious effort to find out. Why make his/her job easier?
My guess: If an applicant leaves the race box blank, the app is filed in the white bucket. Just a guess.
I would be extremely surprised if an AO had the time, or inclination, to attempt to “determine” an applicant’s race.
I dont think an adcom is going to be driven to figure this out. Agree with ski, it can be pretty obvious. Don’t overthink this.
No answer does not equal white.
I would put race anyway if you have an ethnic last name, which most asians do (I’m guessing you’re asian because I remember considering this too)
One thing to understand is that the race/ethnicity questions that have appeared on college applications for years were not created by colleges so they could take race/ethnicity into consideration for admission. They were created by federal law and regulations so that the government could gather race/ethnicity information concerning applicants and those admitted. The questions you find in the college app are typically verbatim the questions as they appear in the federal regulations – by just copying what is in the regs allows a college to avoid any claim it is asking improper race/ethnicity questions in its applications.
Under federal law, you are not required to answer the questions and the college cannot require you to answer them or use your failure to answer them against you. Other than personal information that you provide (name, address, etc.) from which one might guess your race/ethnicity, there should be nothing else provided to the college to indicate your race/ethnicity, e.g., it should not be on a high school transcript.
I would agree. But no answer will, IMO, certainly be viewed as anything other than URM. So an Asian can certainly choose to omit answering the question, but by not answering will not magically move the applicant into some hooked bucket.
I never suggested no answer “equals” white. I did however, GUESS the no answer apps would be grouped with the white ones, but do any of us KNOW? No, we don’t.
I wholeheartedly agree that no answer will NOT place an application into a URM bucket.
So what bucket do no answer apps go into? Again, I don’t think anyone posting here knows the answer to that question. It likely varies from school to school. It may even vary within a school, from one cycle to another.
Not answering will appear to be a purposeful action and viewed as suspect. i.e Why not? I think it hurts you more than it may be viewed as helping.
Agreed that nobody here knows the definitive answer, but I would posit that it would not go into a bucket that would be more beneficial to the applicant.
Yes, it’s a purposeful action. And we can rarely impact how others “view” something. But some people may choose not to refrain answering for reasons that are not nefarious; some of us simply don’t like to label ourselves. Although, again, we can’t control how others may label us.
I strongly disagree that not selecting a racial category would hurt an application’s chances. Help it? I don’t think so either.
I know so many people of (apparently–I don’t ask about such things) different racial/ethnic backgrounds, that refuse to answer those kinds of questions on any application. I also know many folks with racial/ethnic backgrounds, of which they are very proud and should be very proud, who don’t feel ANY of the categories fit them. So they leave the question blank.
Only a currently employed AO could tell us, with certainty, where/how his/her school categorizes “no checked box” on the race question application.
Sure, it’s purposeful. You’re making a statement that colleges shouldn’t use race as a factor in admission. You can even attach a written statement to make it even clearer if you wish. Colleges can’t discriminate against you on the basis that you failed to disclose your race. If they do, there’d be another lawsuit.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/us/14admissions.html
Interesting article on the subject. Ny times
And my kids ran into a few colleges where they could checkmark multiple races.
Race is probably obvious on applications. There are numerous little clues, even if you don’t check a box indicating your background at all. Summer camp in Maine, tennis lessons, on the golf team, People to People ambassador programs? You’re upper middle class white. Play a stringed instrument, have straight As, test prep, good SAT scores, academic camp? You’re upper middle class Asian.
These are obviously broad stereotypes (and I mean no offense), but they do point out the many ways an adcom can guess not only your race but your socioeconomic status. It’s better to just lay it out there and own it.
Most colleges if not all do that now. Government guidelines
Lots of colleges do not consider race/ethnicity or anything else other than academic credentials. Open admission community colleges admit everyone.
So be careful about generalizing about “most” colleges.
They don’t consider it. But they are asked to collect it.