Race Identification on the App.

<p>Yeah, this is pretty much confusing me. Ok, so on all College Board tests, I have selected White, 'cause I mean you can only select one. One of my own school's identification form, you can select multiple. It listed White as "original peoples of Europe" so I selected that and I selected Asian because I'm 1/4. I only selected White on the AP Tests because I was 3/4. Okay, even though I registered as White and Asian, I looked into my account on Naviance and the school just put me as White. My name sounds Italian, so I understand this, but it still annoyed me. Okay, so up to this point there have incongruities in my identifications. Now, it appears there will be more incongruities. When I registered for the online MIT account, it listed people from Spain (the country where my ancestors are mostly from) as Latino. Okay, so I'm really unsure as to what to put on the form for my race identification-should I just put nothing?</p>

<p>^WOAH, that’s intense. You could just not put anything, or I would go with white, if it comes down to it.</p>

<p>You have several options. You might start by sitting down and asking yourself how you identify your ethnic/cultural identity. Bring your parents and other family members into the conversation as well. You could report your ethnicity as “mixed,” or as “Latino” if your ancestry is Spanish. Or you could report yourself as white or leave the section blank. Whatever you decide to do on the form, you can always use the optional “additional information” section of the application to explain your heritage and the incongruity among the various forms. You’d only need a few lines to clear it up, I imagine.</p>

<p>Trust me, MIT has dealt with mixed folks before, and they are aware that this sort of identification can get complicated. If you are really worried about the incongruity, call up/email the Admissions office and explain your situation to them, and see if they think you should explain the incongruities in the “additional information” section (probably not a bad idea).</p>

<p>You have many legitimate options, but keep in mind that if you put Latino, you’ll still need to put a race - Latino is an ethnic/cultural umbrella term; Latinos can be of any race.</p>

<p>“You have many legitimate options, but keep in mind that if you put Latino, you’ll still need to put a race - Latino is an ethnic/cultural umbrella term; Latinos can be of any race.”</p>

<p>Well, that really clears things up. Thanks everyone, I’ll just explain everything to them in the additional section.</p>