<p>Does anyone have stats on what happened at UC after they went race blind some ten years ago? Did they show any definitive trends on Asian admissions?</p>
<p>From the “So I can “Self-identify” my race, but my name is distinctly Asian!” thread: </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You were in the right place to ask further follow-up questions on your concern when you were reading this thread (into which the thread from the Parents Forum has been merged), so here you are again. </p>
<p>What do you think about the issue now?</p>
<p>Also from the most recently merged thread: </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is why it is good to search for the FAQ thread or to follow the link to it, and then post there, to get an answer to this frequently asked question. The federal government requires colleges to ask about ethnicity. It does NOT require applicants or students to tell. </p>
<p>[U.S</a>. Department of Education; Office of the Secretary; Final Guidance on Maintaining, Collecting, and Reporting Racial and Ethnic Data to the U.S. Department of Education [OS]](<a href=“http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/other/2007-4/101907c.html]U.S”>http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/other/2007-4/101907c.html) </p>
<p>It is genuinely, really OPTIONAL to answer the ethnicity and race questions or not answer them. You decide. If you decline to answer the optional questions, you will be in good company, because [hundreds</a> of students who have enrolled at selective colleges are reported as “race/ethnicity unknown”](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062865329-post4.html]hundreds”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062865329-post4.html) because they declined to self-identify.</p>
<p>
The following is from UC Berkeley’s Fall 2008</p>
<p>Ethnicity
African-American 4%
American Indian <1%
Asian-Amer/Pac Isl 42%
Caucasian 31%
Hispanic 12%
International 4%</p>
<p>The percentages indicate the amount of students of a particular ethnicity relative to the entire undergraduate population. As you can see, there are more Asians than whites, so there have definitely been clear results.</p>
<p>Superficially, at least, it appears based on ansar’s post (#125), that it’s in the interest of Asian students to consider changing to less ethnically classifiable names and not marking the race on the form.</p>
<p>Post 119: </p>
<p>I don’t care about federal forms. The title of this thread is – and note one more time that the word “race” is in quotation marks – is “Race” in College Admissions FAQ – not Race in federal forms, race in other technical categories, “default assumptions” or anything else. </p>
<p>Hispanics/Latinos are not considered a different “race” when there is a clear category (not merely an “Other” category), but one specified as Caucasian of Hispanic/Latino origin. </p>
<p>…for purposes of answering the question on the Common App for college admissions.</p>
<p>[U.S</a>. Department of Education; Office of the Secretary; Final Guidance on Maintaining, Collecting, and Reporting Racial and Ethnic Data to the U.S. Department of Education [OS]](<a href=“http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/other/2007-4/101907c.html]U.S”>http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/other/2007-4/101907c.html)</p>
<p>My S always declines race/ethnicity questions when submitting any forms to anyone. He is in “proud of being asians” line but insisting the categorization doesn’t make sense. If the question were asked about ethnicity with self description, he would definitely write down Japanese. He will not hide anything but doesn’t like such categorization of people.
I sympathize with him but always check the box “asian/pacific islander” because of my compromising nature.
BTW, I think the current race/ethnicity categorization in US is only reflecting western prejudice. Most Indians look to me Aryans not Mongoloids. “Asian” is by no means race/ethnicity category but only indicating a region.
In contrast, native americans can be considered to be Mongoloids.
All of the above has nothing to do with fair/unfair question of college admission.</p>
<p>My [main</a> objection to “race” categories](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062907620-post72.html]main”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062907620-post72.html) is that they discourage people from treating their neighbors as individuals rather than as indistinguishable examples of an imaginary type. And, yes, the categories are arbitrary too. I’m actually old enough to remember the days when people from India were officially categorized as “white”–even though many people from India have very dark skin–and was surprised later to learn that people from India had been recategorized as “Asian.” Just recently (well, fairly recently) the “Pacific Islander” category was split off from the “Asian” category. As the United States Census says, “These categories are sociopolitical constructs and should not be interpreted as being scientific or anthropological in nature.” </p>
<p>[Black</a> or African American persons, percent, 2000](<a href=“http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_68176.htm]Black”>http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_68176.htm) </p>
<p>None of the categories fit well cases of young people whose parents come from different categories. And, yes, all of the categories lump together persons whose actual social condition and historical experience is different from other persons lumped into the same category. It is all madness. It’s good that [everyone</a> has the right](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062864808-post1.html]everyone”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062864808-post1.html) to [decline</a> to self-identify by “race”<a href=“which%20may%20be%20simple%20inadvertence,%20or%20may%20be%20a%20positive%20self-identification%20with%20all%20of%20humanity”>/url</a> and that [url=<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062865329-post4.html]great”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062865329-post4.html]great</a> colleges enroll lots of students who don’t self-identify by race](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062865289-post3.html]decline”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062865289-post3.html). </p>
<p>All the rest of this issue is just a matter of parsing the intentionally vague and partially inconsistent federal definitions, which the Department of Education has, as it must, simply taken over from other federal agencies that set the definitions. It’s straightforward enough that if a student has Japanese ancestry, the student may mark “Asian” on the ethnicity questionnaire, just like a student from Pakistan (!), and not mark “Pacific Islander,” even though Japan is located on a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean. The definitions make that clear enough. The definitions do not make clear at all how many American Indian ancestors one must have to be American Indian, and many people mistakenly think there is a rule about that (or a similar ancestry rule for Hispanic ethnicity), but the definitions don’t specify any such thing. And as recent discussion in this thread has revealed, many people are completely confused about the federal definition that a person of Hispanic ethnicity can be of any race, even though that has been the consistent rule since before the “Hispanic” category had that name. (I can remember the days when the "Hispanic category, an “ethnicity” rather than “race” category, didn’t exist at all under any name.) Some of the categories are simply made up. I know which ones I plainly don’t fit, and which I plainly do fit, and I know my “multiracial” children would have to “select one or more” to reflect their own ancestral (and current cultural) heritage, but we all in my family like to assert we are part of humankind, period, and decline to check any of the boxes on the forms, and [no</a> one need second-guess us](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062865405-post7.html]no”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062865405-post7.html) about that.</p>
<p>Here’s a definition of a term that comes up from time to time in College Confidential discussions. The term is “URM,” an abbreviation for “underrepresented minority.” The idea is that some race or ethnic categories may result in more favorable admission consideration, because the scarcity of some kinds of applicants. If a college has a policy of considering one category or another “underrepresented,” that is a decision made college-by-college: there is no federal policy on this issue. Some states ban, by state law, consideration of student race or ethnicity as an admission factor, but many other colleges, including state universities in other states, say that student ethnicity is one factor among several considered in the admission process. </p>
<p>See [post</a> #8](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062867298-post8.html]post”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062867298-post8.html) of this thread for links to Supreme Court cases on this issue.</p>
<p>I’m not enrolled in a tribe, but part of my heritage is from a tribe in South America…does that mean I can label myself as Native American and list the tribe under “Other”?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You could try it. I have no idea how much admission influence that would have.</p>
<p>What is an ORM? The search engine on here fails me :(</p>
<p>CheeryBroody23- An ORM is an over-respresented minority. Asians normally qualify for the term, as they are minorities in the U.S. population yet are over-represented in college admissions.</p>
<p>^ Yes, the usual working assumption is that “Asian” students, who plainly make up only a minority of college applicants, are sometimes (often?) treated as “overrepresented” students, depending on each college’s policies. There are still colleges that would be happy to enroll more Asian students, if only those students would apply in greater numbers.</p>
<p>My S went to a public middle school where many students came from china town. Most of their parents were working at small restaurants or food shops there. They aimed to get in specialized science HS in NYC where race/ethnicity is never considered for admission.<br>
I believe that these kids should be subject to favorable consideration in college admission in the sense of affirmative action. In reality, are they categorized to ORM? It’s just ridiculous.
I think it’s not so serious problem to treat kids like my S, children of japanese transfered personel, without favor. But I think the china town community has right to be treated like African American community in Harlem or Hispanic community in East Harlem.</p>
<p>
Well, I doubt they really think about particular tribes to accept (that would be like differentiating between someone who wrote Colombian under the Hispanic label and someone who wrote Venezuelan)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Some colleges may (or may not) ask follow-up questions about tribal registration or other evidence of affiliation with your American Indian heritage. It’s up to the college to decide.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes. It’s rather amazing that people who pride themselves on being “smart” don’t have the common sense to realize that if they only broadened their horizons and applied to excellent schools that were off the beaten track, they’d have very good chances of getting in. But no – being obsessed with the same 12 or so top schools is supposed to be evidence of being “smart.” Whatever.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s not being smart, it’s choosing the right field. Let’s face it; a disproportionately large group of Asians applying to top schools are interested in engineering/premed, and colleges that are lacking in Asians (particularly LACs) aren’t exactly known for their proficiency in either field. Believe it or not, Asians do actually have interests beyond protecting their insecurities.</p>