<p>Ok, I'm an idiot. On every test that I take, I seriosuly cant decide if I'm white or Asian (I'm half and half), and I can't remember what i put down for each test. Is there any way i can call the collegeboard and ask them to change my info so its consistant?</p>
<p>Will colleges think I'm full of crap if i end up putting down "other" on their applications, wheras my test reports will read asian?</p>
<p>HELP ME IM FREAKING OUT!</p>
<p>There are so many bi-racial (and tri-racial, and generally mixed race) kids in general that I think the colleges will understand. Frankly, it would be my hope that they're not really looking at the race indicators on the SAT!</p>
<p>Is this cultural question only on the SAT I or also the SAT IIs, because I did the SAT IIs this morning and don't remember having to answer that question.</p>
<p>Relax, the College Board won't report your race when you authorize score reports to be sent to colleges!</p>
<p>The College Board asks about race for two reasons:</p>
<p>1) their internal statistical studies--they use the data to analyze test questions for possible bias or to identify areas of relative strength and weakness that educators should address for different subpopulations</p>
<p>2) when selling mass-marketing mailing lists. A college may request a mass mailing of address labels of student populations specified with a variety of parameters (e.g., students of a particular religious denomination living in certain zipcodes, who are first-generation college, with particular ethinicities that happen to be underrepresented at the college, who scored over a certain level on math, who said they wanted to major in science, etc., etc.) </p>
<p>When a colleges purchases a mailing list specified as the above, all they get is a list of addresses--no particular data about individual students. All they know about the mailing list is that the students on it satisfy all the criteria the college specified when it purchased the list, but they don't know any specific details. (In particular, e.g., if the college said, "Please give us a list of students who scored over 600 in math with family incomes below $50,000," they just get a list of addresses meeting the criteria and they do NOT get specifics of the exact score or income level of the students on the list.)</p>
<p>Colleges typically purchase lots of lists and they only specify positive criteria that they are interested in. They use those lists for marketing, NOT admissions decisions.</p>
<p>The information from College Board reports colleges use for admissions decisions comes from the score reports that you authorize to be sent. </p>
<p>You get a paper copy of the score report in the mail so you can check out what is on it. You'll notice that the score report doesn't have any of that "student profile" information that you filled out (about race, religion, family income, parents' education, etc.) It just has your scores and test dates and very minimal identifying information (student name, address, sex, date of birth, and Social Security number, if you listed it on your registration.)</p>
<p>So relax!</p>
<p>It wouldn't hurt at all to simply not answer the question. Questions about race/ethnicity are always OPTIONAL on test registration forms and on college applications. My children are also "half-Asian," and it's pointless to fit all young people in the multiracial United States into the Procrustean bed of the usual ethnic categories found on forms.</p>
<p>Whew, thanks guys!</p>