I am Chinese and I can speak very little Chinese. I only speak Chinese with my mom but English to the rest of my family (siblings and father). So should I put primary language spoken at home is Chinese or English? Would it show more diversity if I put Chinese (I used to speak a lot of Chinese at home but we kinda assimilated and slowly spoke more English as we all grew older). But I am also thinking I shouldn’t put Chinese because I don’t want to seem like a stereotype because colleges expect more from Asians/Chinese. So if I put English then I would seem more Americanized and not the typical boring Chinese math-machine.
I know this is really trivial and probably won’t affect my app but I am kinda paranoid at which to put because I’ve read a lot of articles of ethnic discrimination.
You should put English as your primary language.
What language are the notes on the bulletin board/whiteboard in?
You’ve answered your own question.
IMO, it will not swing the pendulum one way or the other. However, since you admit you are not proficient, I wouldn’t list it.
Do you think in the “additional comments” section it would be appropriate to mention that chinese is not your home language?
If you grew up in the US and your English is much stronger than your Chinese, do not put Chinese as your home language! Some places will spot that and will want you to take the TOEFL. Yup, it has been known to happen.
Whether you want to write about speaking some Chinese (or not speaking much Chinese) in an essay is a whole other thing.
Not really an essay, just a sentence or two.
You can just put it in the language box of the common app saying that you can speak and understand it