<p>On college apps, you always “self-identify” your race. If he identifies as an Asian even though he is mostly white, he is considered “Asian”.
I am not really sure why he would put “Asian” on his application- it’s a negative in most cases.</p>
<p>Officially, you can put any race that you identify with as long as you’re at least 1/8 that ethnicity.
However, to second what other people have said, your friend really doesn’t want to put “Asian”. That’s not an applicant pool you want to be messing with, he’d be more competitive as a “Caucasian”.</p>
<p>Yeah… Why would he want to put down that he’s Asian…lmao</p>
<p>If his last name doesn’t indicate that’s he’s Asian, I’d leave it out. Indicating that you’re Asian only hurts your chances.</p>
<p>I wish I weren’t Asian for college sometimes… Maybe he and I could trade :D</p>
<p>Drawing on some legal precedent:</p>
<p>In Ozawa v United States (1922) the Supreme Court ruled that both scientific classifications and common knowledge were to be used in determining whether someone constituted as white. This test was modified in United States v. Thind (1923), where scientific classification and common knowledge conflicted (Bhagat Thind was clearly Asian-Indian yet scientific classifications labeled Indians as “Caucasian”). The ruling was that common knowledge, “the understanding of the common man”, trumped scientific fact. Thus, science fails as a judge of racial distinctions, and common perception is paramount. From what I can tell, this interpretation remains to this day. </p>
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There you have it. He’s not Asian. You are certainly a “common man” and your perception of his race overrides whatever he may claim and whatever science he may use to support it. At least in the eyes of the United States government. If he applies to any school that draws from government funds, he must report his race as white.</p>
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<p>Your question was merged into this main FAQ thread on such questions. The current federal regulations allow college applicants to self-identify with no race category at all, by leaving the question blank, or to “select one or more” if the applicant feels, based on the federal definitions, that more than one category fits. There is not a minimum ancestry requirement for any of the categories–not even the American Indian or Alaska Native category. </p>
<p>See the FAQ posts (the first dozen or so posts of this thread) for much more information on the current definitions and regulations. </p>
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<p>To the contrary, there is no official statement to that effect, in other words there is no specified degree of ancestry that is officially enough to be part of one “race” or another. </p>
<p>P.S. The reply immediately above as I post this is misleading and doesn’t appear to be based on reading the FAQ.</p>
<p>I’m half Chinese half white, and originally I was just going to check both boxes on the common app. I know Chinese is usually a negative, but given my list of schools I think I may be better off ONLY checking Chinese…any thoughts? List is: Whitman, Oberlin, Skidmore, Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Pitzer, Scripps, Occidental.</p>
<p>Personally, in this case, I don’t think it’ll help or hurt you either way. Mark ‘biracial’</p>
<p>So you’d lie just for a “perceived” edge in admissions?</p>
<p>Put whatever you identify with or check “Other.” It’s not the college’s business anyway, don’t feel pressured to identify a certain way to please colleges.</p>
<p>I can’t even believe they’re still allowed to ask this question. You can’t ask on employment applications. Is it an optional question?</p>
<p>r124687: the are allowed to ask, you are allowed to decline. It’s optional. Even for job applications – if the company receives federal funding, they will ask job applicants to indicate race for tracking purposes. The answer is optional too.</p>
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<p>Your question has been merged into the main FAQ thread. Read the first several posts in this thread for more information. The one box to check is “white,” of course, and the other box is “Asian” rather than “Chinese.” Colleges don’t publish enough information to make clear whether it is advantageous or disadvantageous for a particular applicant to indicate one race or the other, in most cases. I have not seen any specific information about any of the colleges you mention in that regard. </p>
<p>It is correct that </p>
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<p>as this FAQ thread and the FAQ posts that make up the first dozen or so posts on this thread are designed to make clear. The applicant can’t just make something up–in other words the applicant cannot indicate a “race” that doesn’t fit one of the federal definitions at all–but the applicant gets to decide what to indicate. As of this year, the race section of the two-part ethnicity and race questionnaire allows a “select one or more” response as to race, so an applicant with two or three or four possible race categories can select none or one or two or three of those, and isn’t required to list the races exhaustively. The applicant isn’t required to answer the question at all. </p>
<p>If there is something unusual about your background, whatever it is, that would make you a person who would add genuine diversity to the group of enrolled students at the college you desire, be sure to mention that in your application. It’s up to you to find out about the colleges you are applying to and to see if they provide any helpful information (not likely, in the cases I have checked) for applicants in your situation. In my observation, “half-Asian” persons are well represented numerically and percentage-wise at most colleges in the land, but they are ambassadors of a post-racial view of society, so perhaps that is fitting. </p>
<p>Good luck in your applications.</p>
<p>A local news story today </p>
<p>[The</a> times alter the campus hue | StarTribune.com](<a href=“http://www.startribune.com/local/79863892.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUsZ]The”>http://www.startribune.com/local/79863892.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUsZ) </p>
<p>describes college enrollment trends in Minnesota. One interesting paragraph in the article, </p>
<p>“In the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system, the enrollment of low-income, minority and first-generation college students – groups considered “underrepresented” – is up 22 percent this fall over last year.” </p>
<p>shows that ethnicity is not the only category that can result in an individual applicant being deemed to come from an “underrepresented” group of applicants.</p>
<p>The fact that there are so many students who are posting these questions , worried that checking off if you are asian will lessen their chances at getting into a top college strengthens my point that the selection bias is very real, with very real consequences. Implicit in these questions is the fact that URMs with lower qualifications ( grades, SATs) are allowed in before asians with better scores. </p>
<p>I look at all these posters who are Asian, who are feeling the direct negative effects of affirmative action,and I feel, basically, the system that allows this type of selection bias is unfair and wrong. Maybe I’m not “politically correct”, but I only care to see this country’s academic standards go up , not down. I have tried to explain my reasons to not have this selection bias, and I have been shouted down by many other posters. The role of this bias negatively impacts our country’s innovation , and our subsequent loss in the leadership position in the world cannot be understated.</p>
<p>I also feel badly for all these bright , promising young prospective students who are finding closed doors.</p>
<p>Bill Cosby once complained about the racism of lowered expectations.</p>
<p>^ Repeated student questions don’t confirm that bias is real, but only that perception of bias is widespread. </p>
<p>What I find more disturbing in the new threads that get posted when this FAQ thread isn’t visible on the first page of the forum is the HUGE number of flat-wrong answers that get posted to legitimate student questions. It’s regrettable that what is a rather simple set of rules, except at the margins, is so widely misunderstood. Yes, colleges are less than transparent about how, if at all, they use student ethnicity information in the admission process, but everyone knows what kind of academic preparation to have for the most selective colleges, and most students know that there are dozens or even hundreds of decent colleges that admit the great majority of their applicants. Sometimes the worries about affirmative action policies at the individual level are overdone. What is more concerning to me, and would matter (I think) even if my children had perfect chances to get into their most desired colleges, is the overall societal effect of reifying “race” categories by [categorizing</a> everyone in diverse American society](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1063506785-post8.html]categorizing”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1063506785-post8.html). To me, the debate is not about how different categories are treated in college admission, but that we go about [categorizing</a> at all for any official purpose](<a href=“http://www.preventgenocide.org/prevent/removing-facilitating-factors/IDcards/]categorizing”>Group Classification on National ID Cards - Jim Fussell - 15 Nov 2001). I come from a part of the United States that never had official “race” categories at the state level for any purpose, and has always (for example) permitted “interracial” marriages and state university attendance by students from any “race.”</p>
<p>^ If the perception is widespread, and it is among an intelligent group of people, then there has to be an element of truth to it . I said this , because I can’t argue this point any other way, I usually get a tome of sociologic and political statements as a result,and this serves to dilute your message.</p>
<p>Say what you want to say . This is not a law brief or an autobiography.This makes me think that there IS no good answer to my question if you have to reply this way… Tokenadult, you are obviously very intelligent, but for those of us who like it simple, please make your point.</p>
<p>And if you can’t make your point simply ( and my conjecture is that you can’t, not because of any inadequacy on your part, but because NO ONE can , reasonably ), then don’t fool yourself, there IS no answer.</p>
<p>e.g.,</p>
<p>If someone cuts in front of me on line, especially if that line is long, and I can’t complain about that person cutting in on line, should I pacify myself by excusing that person, with tons of platitudes, ie, use your excuses ? “Oh, he/she cut in front of me, but they look like they’re more deserving than I , and oh, I really probably picked the WRONG line, I really should have been on another line, I shall feel so much better for letting them in front of me…” In this country, no one as a matter of course allows anyone to cut in line
( try it )as a matter of routine behaviour.</p>
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<p>I disagree with GoBlue Jays that “If the perception is widespread, and it is among an intelligent group of people, then there has to be an element of truth to it,” but I agree that “…there IS no good answer to [your] question…”</p>
<p>The problem is that lots of these affirmative action policies are extremely vaguely defined, at best. That’s why there is no good answer to your question. Try to discuss the policy with an admissions officer, as I did several years back on these forums, and you get murky and contradictory answers that in my opinion, don’t hold up to any level of logical scrutiny. I don’t blame the officers in the slightest; they aren’t responsible for creating and maintaining these policies and yet they’re the ones who have to defend and explain it to outsiders like myself. Not fair to them if you ask me.</p>
<p>But, this problem is also why it cannot be decisively said that there is bias. We just don’t know for sure due to a dearth of valid information. Certainly, research from Espenshade can serve to make the perception of bias even more widespread, but at the end of the day, the officers can simply adopt the attitude of, “Espenshade is wrong. End of discussion.”</p>
<p>^ Good point, Fabrizio, about the lack of certainty, although is still hard for me to accept that 100% of perception is wrong, ie, there must be some truth to it. </p>
<p>However, I understand that there just isn’t acceptable data out either, and there is no absolute way to definitively prove that there is bias in AA policies, especially since AA policies themselves may not be well defined. As a physician , we too try to make decisions only on "firm " data, such as evidence -based medicine. However, sometimes we have to throw the book out the window, and treat according to our intuition, and experience, and I think this is where my point comes in.</p>
<p>I suppose the fair thing to say is that my perception is that unfair bias exists, based on anecdotal evidence, as is the same perception of many others, but is not wholly provable within our system. ( Gosh, that sounds a little Godelian, no ?) </p>
<p>What I would like to point out, however, is that many in the college advising field, and my child’s guidance counselor included, perceive there is a bias, esp wrt asians. They have overtly stated it…with phrases like, “like it or not …” We have always received the advice, which has become mantra, that our daughter’s scores were not good enough for the “reach” schools, given our asian race. </p>
<p>I feel that it is the guidance/advisors who actually unwittingly carry out this biased policy inadvertently, by discouraging applications by non URMs to the top elites in this way. Fabrizio,this lends credence to your point about it not being very murky and undefinable. If we can’t tell where the bias even begins, how can we start to analyze it objectively?</p>
<p>I shall never be able to definitively prove this discriminatory policy exists, but I am certain it’s there, not because of racism , but because of well meaning , but misguided policy makers. </p>
<p>This doesn’t agree with my basic concepts of fairness, provable or not. What we need to do about it is a completely different story, but the opacity of the issue should not serve as a deterrent to further discussion.</p>