<p>This is a question to those Asians and Indians (the ORMs) who declined to report their race during college admissions. Do you think that not disclosing your race helped you get into the colleges you wanted to? Specifically, I am talking about those that do want diversity (the Ivys etc.), not like UC-Berkeley and Umich which banned affirmative action.</p>
<p>I’m interested to know this as well, I declined to report race (asian) to most colleges, but im not sure if that actually helped.</p>
<p>Well, I could’ve put either white or Asian, and of course I put white. My white side is an ethnic group that no one’s ever heard of which I definitely think helped because I was accepted ED to UPenn despite not being the strongest applicant. Not disclosing wasn’t really an option since I was born in China and have a really funny last name, haha.</p>
<p>Reporting or not reporting your race doesn’t make a difference except if you’re an URM. Plus, they could probably tell your race from your surname anyway.</p>
<p>My surname is not readily identifiable, so the surname thing isn’t a big problem. But wouldn’t it make a difference? Here’s an except from a LATimes article:</p>
<p>“They are not wrong to worry about Asian admissions. The circumstantial evidence for a “bamboo” ceiling on Asian admissions is mounting.”</p>
<p>So according to the numbers, it should help. But I wanted some personal experience. Perhaps you didn’t check the box on one application and did on another just to see what would happen. Perhaps you were accepted into more colleges than your other Indian/Asian peers that did check the box because you didn’t.</p>
<p>There was an article in the New York Times a little while ago about Asians at Harvard who thought it helped them not to disclose race.</p>
<p>So according to the numbers, it should help. But I wanted some personal experience. Perhaps you didn’t check the box on one application and did on another just to see what would happen. Perhaps you were accepted into more colleges than your other Indian/Asian peers that did check the box because you didn’t.</p>
<p>None of this is actual useful information, since Asian peers differ from each other in other significant ways besides just whether or not they checked the box and different schools evaluate students differently. It’s virtually impossible to determine whether declaring your race or deciding to leave it blank changes your prospects in the process.</p>
<p>In fact, a lot of people hypothesize that Asians don’t get a penalty; it’s simply that URMs get a “leg up” when it comes to test scores. For example, Harvard may be looking to accept students around a rough 2100-2200 average, but they relax their standards a bit (maybe around a 1900-2000 average) for Latino and Black applicants who are otherwise outstanding applicants. See - in that case it doesn’t hurt you to be Asian in the sense that they expect higher test scores from you, it just helps you to be black or Latino. (And perhaps not as much, because SAT scores are overall much lower for black applicants than for Asian applicants - there are just far more Asian applicants with test scores in the 2100 range than there are Black or Latino applicants with test scores in the 2000 range.)</p>
<p>In those cases, the higher Asian SAT average isn’t because Asians are expected to have higher SAT scores but because accomplished Asian applicants have on average higher SAT scores anyway.</p>
<p>If colleges really want to limit the number of Asians, it seems to me that in most cases failing to self-identify won’t really prevent the college from finding out if you are Asian. They will see your name, the names of your parents on financial forms, and all your ECs. If they really want to know, they can Google you and, most likely, look at your picture.</p>
<p>And I suspect that the vast majority of those who decline to identify ethnicity are Asian, so colleges may well assume that in the first place.</p>
<p>Asking individuals ORMs to guage their success/lack of success in competitve college admissions won’t give you any discernable pattern. One kid gets accepted at her top choice among HYPMSC and tells you: “It didn’t affect me at all! I’m in!” While another is rejected at one HYPMSC but accepted at five and says: “I was rejected b/c I checked off Asian”</p>
<p>How do you verify? How do you strike out for differences and biases. Self-reporting? They’d only be wildly speculating as to why or why not they got in or didn’t get in.</p>
<p>@T
I think at least some can be honest with themselves. Those that get in partly because they are URM, legacy, or development usually know why they were on the other side of the fine line between rejection and denial. Sometimes, when I read the results threads, the gap in achievement is large when supplemented by one of these factors. Certainly deep down in their hearts, the URMs, legacies, and developments know.</p>
<p>Those that did not check off the box should probably know in their heart of hearts whether it helped them or not too. I think you underestimate how many people can be honest with themselves. Although, I’m guessing not many ORMs don’t check because not one of the non-checkers have posted on the thread…</p>
<p>There is not one thing about my daughter that would point to her being Chinese - not her name, address, EC’s, essay. Even a picture of her might be incorrectly identified as Hispanic or even white (with a good tan).</p>
<p>I’m not sure that even a personal interview would point it out. If you didn’t check any box and were assigned an interview in Omaha, and the interviewer didn’t think anything about your being Asian and didn’t note it on the report, why would the admissions office think to ask?</p>
<p>My daughter wouldn’t check the box, not because she doesn’t want the school to know but because she doesn’t feel Asian. To her it is just not a factor so she wouldn’t make it one.</p>
<p>@Kerk: You wrote “Certainly deep down in their hearts, the URMs, legacies, and developments know.”</p>
<p>How? That 4.0GPA 2350 SAT rejectee from Princeton doesn’t know why he was rejected but Harvard accepted him. I certainly don’t know why every single school I applied to (including multiple Ivies) accepted me. I’m Chinese American and my scores placed me squarely in the 25th percentile of my fellow matriculating freshmen at my HYP alma mater. Why did it and the other selective colleges accept me? I couldn’t tell you if my life depended on it. I wasn’t a development kid, legacy or URM. I was no 4.0 student not some science whiz. As a matter of fact, I’m your Asian anomaly. That’s why I feel your search for individuals’ anecdotes gets you only anecdotes.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, this is a situation where people see what they want to see. </p>
<p>The best I have seen was a “categorized” URM who was told at an Ivy he got in because he was a URM and how URMs have lower scores etc. etc. The URM asked to see the kid’s scores and then showed him his - the URM was higher by 20+ points in every category. it was not even close. Just imagine the thousands of kids around the country saying the URM should not be there, even though they were not as good as he. </p>
<p>The best thing to do is do your best, apply, then hope for the best. Blaming others is a waste of intellectual acumen.</p>
<p>
The irony is that somebody like this probably should check the box, because (from my observations, anyway) Asians with non-typical resumes seem to do better in elite admissions.</p>
<p>^I agree. And I would hazard to guess that my non-typical Asian candidacy probably assisted my eventual outcomes.</p>