If you look at med school admission where they are a lot more transparent about admission criteria, the tables show that the main criteria are MCAT and GPA, and you can see the massive URM advantage.
eg. for an Asian, a GPA of 3.2-3.4 and MCAT of 27-29 gives a 14% chance.
With the same stats, a Hispanic gets a 44% acceptance rate. Why would one assume there is no advantage in college too given how much importance they give for diversity?
Some college counselors in the Los Angeles (San Gabriel) area have suggested last name change to hyper anxious Chinese parents who are trying to get their kiddo into HYPS. Would need to be done before HS starts.
It has nothing to do with culture, or becoming me Americanized. It purely has to do with “if I don’t check the ethnicity box, will they be able to figure out my ethinicity since I am applying as a ORM.” It’s all about strategies including tutors, cram schools, etc. As a poster above said, if you are going thru all of that trouble to try to game the system, then pick a Hispanic-sounding last name and leave the ethnicity box unchecked.
I personally think that the gaming has gone a bit too far.
It’s no secret that at elite colleges Asians are required to score 150 points higher than whites, and 350 points higher than blacks. The discrimination is blatant and open. There is a long history in this country of immigrants taking English-sounding names. These parents are very wise.
My son has a good friend who is half Asian. I’ve told my son to urge his friend not to put that he is Asian on any application. Really, it’s a bit like saying you are Jewish in early Nazi Germany. (And don’t bring up Godwin’s law, because it’s the truth).
By the way, I’m not Asian, but I think the pervasive discrimination against them is pretty disgusting.
@YoHoYoHo has it right. It’s all about maximizing your children’s chances of winning the college admissions prize. It is a cultural phenomenon taken to an extreme where anything is fair game.
Of course, some names can be racially and ethnically ambiguous. For example, would you assume that a “Robert Lee” is of any particular race or ethnicity?
My husband who immigrated to this country (from South America) as a teen, was classified as a caucasian for years. Sometime in the 80s, his employer started listing him as hispanic, so he went along with it. Now we have a teenager, who we used to list as other (human), but were told we had to pick a different one. So he became hispanic. I’m sure in a few years all that will change.
The colleges track names for sure. DS is 1/2 Chinese, but didn’t check off the Asian box. He has a Caucasian last name. However, I use my Chinese maiden surname as my middle name. Thus the only clue that DS was 1/2 Chinese was the parent #2 middle name on his common app. He got invited to a college’s Asian accepted students event without any additional info from him. So yes, these colleges track these things pretty closely.
The sad thing is that they are that obsessed with college admissions at this stage of parenting. They’ll be the kind of losers who will think that the sun rises and sets on HYPSM. That’s the bigger shame than whether or not they actually change their name.
They’ll also likely be the kinds of parents who dutifully point the child to tennis, violin, science fairs and then wonder why they don’t get in, because duh, too many of the same.
I know a chinese-american family (parents moved to US as adults and became US citizens; children born in US) where the father changed the spelling of his surname to something ambiguous, both parents took “non-asian” first names, and named their children VERY “american” names (e.g. Michael, Nicholas, William…NOT these, but you get the idea). At the time I thought it was sad that they felt they needed to “americanize” their names. I suspect that they were thinking ahead to college admissions when they named their children…and as it turns out, their oldest is attending Stanford.
Many immigrants “americanized” their names a century ago. But (a) it wasn’t always their choice and (b) it wasn’t to do so for the college admissions system to increase a chance of admission to the elites.
This has been done for the longest time. It’s not just for college admissions, but for many reasons that can be quite valid. I’m going to say right out that being Asian isn’t an issue for college admissions. It’s having the stereotypical Asian profile. THe schools do not have Asian detectors and giving Asians a lower chance of admissions. Change of name, not checking the box, and hiding ones face is not going to do it in terms of getting a bump up on admissions unless you lie and check the URM box. Whether you are white non Hispanic or Asian is exactly the same–no URM pool which is where it makes the difference.
However, on individual bases, there are ople out there who are predjudiced against Asians, or any given ethnicity, and you can get a “paper pass” from those bigots. Some have deep seeded pain from the wars involving Asians, having lost loved ones, and haven’t been able to move on. Some are just that way with no known reason. But, yes, there are individuals who dislike certain nationalities, religions, ethnic groups, and you can hide from them by going vanilla in name. How prevalent that is, I don’t know.
For name recognition and memory, it is often advantageous to have a name that is easy for others to remember. TO my great shame, there are acquaintances whose names I cannot remember without looking up and pronunciation is an issue. IF you are in a job where it is a big factor that someone remembers your name, and feels as comfortable as can be with you, and if wrong spelling, etc can cause.
A friend of mine reluctantly changed her name when it became clear it was impacting her business. She was a realtor and lost follow ups simply because people could not remember her name. She was so proud of her heritage and it was a huge blow to find out that the name was an issue not just to her, but her children. Names, at times, can make a difference, in tip factors and with those who “don’t like no foreigners”.
Both my parents Americanized their surnames to nice British names. My mother can say she wanted to simplify a difficult pronunciation, my father wanted to mask his family religion (and also converted,) but both were really trying to pass as something else. It did nothing to resolve their emotional baggage.
The colleges (and high schools) may track identities for various reasons, but to assume this is some master control or effort to block Asian- American kids is too much. And, no matter how many times we say that, some do carry this certainty there is something wrong with their heritage. A shame.
I really don’t see the issue other than the wrong perception the couple is having about college apps. I know many folks who changed their names just because they preferred another. This is something that people do all of the time. Don’t want to bother with a difficult pronunciation or association with a history, then go right ahead. I know a number of Hussains, and others with Muslim associated names that decided to change, including a family member.
Congratulations on your expected progeny, jzmagic, but isn’t this a bit too much * counting your chickens*?
Perhaps, as you haven’t been out of college really that long, you haven’t read this?
Interpret statistics with a grain of salt. If you take Med School applicants with 3.4-4.0 GPA you will find that Asians have a 39% to 35% advantage and a 7673 to 2891 advantage in acceptances. What does it mean? I don’t know.