<p>According to collegeboard, 17% of MIT is considered Hispanic/Latino compared to 25% Asian. I'm pretty surprised by how high this number is in relation to others, so my question is does being Hispanic/Asian worsen your chances? Hispanics are usually URMs but are they ORMs like Asians at MIT? It seems like it would be better to just register as "other" when designating your race. What the heck would the adcom think if you picked 2 or more races?</p>
<p>They cancel each other out and you become Caucasian :D</p>
<p>^LOL!</p>
<p>Reply of the Day</p>
<p>…so they don’t look at it?</p>
<p>i am an international student from Nepal. what would i pick, “Asian”?
technically yes, but not as a race. Should i pick “Others” then?</p>
<p>By the way guys, Hispanic/ Latino is not a race, it is an ethnicity. I would mark other for race and Hispanic/ Latino for ethnicity.</p>
<p>smh </p>
<p>[Putting</a> Diversity into Context | MIT Admissions](<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/which-box-should-i-check]Putting”>Putting Diversity into Context | MIT Admissions)</p>
<p>There is no such category as “other.” (The College Board and some other publishers of Common Data Set information publish statistics about students who were reported by colleges to the federal government as “race/ethnicity unknown” in the category “other,” rather than using the official federal name for that category.) See the newly revised FAQ on race in college admission </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1366406-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-10-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1366406-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-10-a.html</a> </p>
<p>for many more details about what colleges must ask, and what students are allowed to decline or choose to say about their race. </p>
<p>Good luck in your applications.</p>
<p>This wasnt really a question about improving chances but just deciding what to check as in other or unknown or multi-racial while learning hat attracts Hispanics to MIT. I realize there are events more important than trying to get into college. <em>GASP</em> I’ll just explain my complicated situation and hope the adcom understands.</p>
<p>tokenadult, Thanks for the great info. you have provided. However, I am still not clear, can an applicant mark Hispanic for ethnicity and undeclared for race? Take my son´s example, he is a colored, American born, half Hispanic of mixed racial ancestry who basically attended poor Hispanic (Mexican) elementary and middle schools in Texas. In racial appearance he looks like the Carribean people of similar racial heritage:</p>
<p><a href=“Guyana | Language, People, & Oil Discovery | Britannica”>Guyana | Language, People, & Oil Discovery | Britannica;
<p>As far as his race/ ethnicity is concerned, </p>
<p>on his father´s side (me), he has mixed Islamic Afghan and Islamic Indian heritage: Paternal grandmother was 100% Muslim Afghan. Paternal grandfather was 100% Muslim Indian. This would make son, perhaps, 1/4 Asian (Indian), 1/4? (Afghan). However, he does not speak Afghan or Hindi/ Urdu. </p>
<p>on his mother´s side, he has 100% Catholic Hispanic European heritage. However, he does not look European.</p>
<p>Also, racially similar to Luso Indians (descendants of Portugese and Indian Muslims):</p>
<p>[Madras</a> Musings - We care for Madras that is Chennai](<a href=“http://madrasmusings.com/Vol%2020%20No%2012/the-anglo-indians-of-madras.html]Madras”>http://madrasmusings.com/Vol%2020%20No%2012/the-anglo-indians-of-madras.html)</p>
<p>To answer the question, yes, a person can mark yes on the Hispanic/Latino ethnicity question, and leave the race question blank, and still be in compliance with all federal regulations on the subject. (Either question or both questions are optional for a college applicant.) I have no idea how various colleges would treat such a response. This is the MIT forum, and you see that an MIT admission officer has linked to an MIT statement by another MIT admission officer from last year.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Regarding the link,</p>
<p>When I was a kid, I recall having to identify my race on all kinds of forms, including standardized tests, long before I contemplated completing an application for college admission. From my perspective, checking the box, or boxes to indicate one’s race should be as automatic as providing one’s name.</p>
<p>I believe this is generally true for Americans with ancestors who were born in the USA, but not necessarily true for recent American immigrants who did not need to identify their race as a kid. So, it is not as automatic for us. It is also not as automatic for my son who was born in an America where racial discrimination is illegal and Admission Officers at top universities are trying to undo it´s effects.</p>
<p>Tokenadult, sorry to abruptly end my last post, I lost my internet connection. We are visiting my son`s grandmother in Spain for the summer, where the internet is not always accessible to us. By the way, on moday we visit the Mezquita (Mosque?) in Cordoba- could be an interesting topic of discussion for a kid from a mixed Muslim- Spanish Christian family. We will see. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I accept the above statement at face value. So, I think, my question can be seen in it´s proper context. Some of us (especially immigrants and their children), just want to check boxes that most accurately describe us, according to the latest definitions on the subject in the host country. As you know, these definitions are constantly changing. For example, East Indians have legally been described as both Whites and Asians in the American legal system in different times. Also, I am still not clear, are Afghans seen as white or asian according to the latest definitions? thanks. In a practical sense, my son simply sees himself as a non white, Hispanic, well adjusted in a mostly Hispanic/ MA school in TX.</p>
<p>It can be complicated for bi-racial kids.</p>
<p>My son self identifies as PR because that’s how he sees himself in the mirror each day, though he is 1/2 Caucasian (Ukranian Jew, to be exact).</p>
<p>One day he wore a t-shirt with the words, “Puerto Rico’s Got Rhythm” (a band that came to our church). He was stopped by a security guard for having an expired trolley pass. The guard begin to speak to my son in Spanish. My son told him he didn’t speak Spanish. The guard, also PR, got angry with my son and told him, “Don’t wear that shirt if you can’t speak Spanish.”</p>
<p>Things can be complicated.</p>
<p>I will say, knowing that MIT admission officers look on in this forum, that the federal law on the subject has it right. Applicants get to decide whether or not they answer the question at all. They can decline to answer either or both questions (“ethnicity” or “race”) by law. Therefore no college admission committee should make any adverse inference of ANY kind about a college applicant who chooses to exercise what is, after all, a legal right for all college applicants without exception. A college that systematically disfavors applicants who decline to answer the OPTIONAL questions on a college application is practicing racial discrimination, period. There are a lot of reasons why applicants decline to self-identify with any narrower group of humankind than humankind as a whole (in my family’s case, it is because of deep knowledge of human biology, including knowledge gained from a book recently published by MIT Press), and no college has any basis in law for assuming the worst about applicants who think that their most fitting self-identification is declining to check any of the checkboxes on the form. I want to put that out there, loud and clear (I’m a lawyer), because the MIT admission office statement from last year is subject to the interpretation (which may not be the intended meaning of the MIT admission office) that applicants who exercise their legal right to leave the checkboxes blank are disfavored by the MIT admission committee. If that is so, the federal Department of Education should look into the issue, as the law is completely clear that applicants are at liberty to answer the questions or not as they choose.</p>
<p>TokenAdult, could you please post of what you are speaking? Was that this blog?</p>
<p>[Putting</a> Diversity into Context | MIT Admissions](<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/which-box-should-i-check]Putting”>Putting Diversity into Context | MIT Admissions)</p>
<p>I’m not seeing where it says it’s disadventageous to decline to identify one’s race but perhaps I’m missing something.</p>
<p>Thank-you.</p>
<p>I could be wrong, but my take was that checking a box/ boxes on the application does not really make much of a difference. My sense is that it is the story within the academic record, lors and essays that these adcoms are focused on.</p>
<p>perazziman - </p>
<p>I do think you bring up an interesting point. While I do agree with - and often cite / link to - David’s post, I do think that his point here: </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>was perhaps a little oversimplified. Certainly, there may be students who have a certain ambivalence about their racial or ethnic identity, and that internal conflict may manifest in any number of interesting and different ways. </p>
<p>The point David was trying to get at, though, was that because we allow you to check multiple boxes, we also allow students to outline the contours of their racial and ethnic identity, and then to fill inside the lines in the essays which constitute the balance of the application. So for a student like your child, he can check whichever boxes might describe him, and then elaborate upon how he conceptualizes his own identity in the essays.</p>
<p>I am sorry for the delayed response, but we are just getting back from Cordoba, where we did not have access to the internet. </p>
<p>Thanks MITChris. I agree, perhaps his point was a little oversimplified. However, as the old saying goes, exception proves the rule. I also think David expressed a valid concern about applicants checking certain boxes to get admitted. </p>
<p>As far as my son is concerned, we are hoping, it is not the race boxes per se, but the fact that he also sucessfully attended public elementary and middle schools in poor Mexican American neighborhoods in TX that will get him noticed by adcoms. </p>
<p>sbjdorlo, So often, it is individuals who belong to the most vulnerable groups who become victims and then say the most painful things. It is people like our children who can look past the insults and still help.</p>