I read through a lot of the “Race in College Applications” thread(s) and came away with a headache.
I’ve seen an awful lot written about the issues with multi-racial kids, so this should be simple.
Her parents are white, not that this matters. Will identifying as ‘Asian’ hurt her? Would leaving it blank help her? Can you identify your race for some schools, and not others in the CA? If she has a Chinese middle name (she does), will that identify her even if she chooses not to report her race?
She definitely identifies as an Asian. She knows Mandarin and has traveled to China. We celebrate major Chinese holidays in our own awkward ways. I’m just interested in whether or not identifying her race will help/hurt.
To be honest, and as I’m sure you know, identifying as Asian might not help on a lot of high tier schools. They already get so many Asian applicants, it’s probably just better to leave it blank. Although as a side note, her heritage could make one hell of an essay.
@MotherOfDragons Of course she should do whatever she wants, but we’re trying to provide pros and cons to identifying as Asian or White, or jsut leaving it blank.
I’m going to support identifying for several reasons.
Is it likely to come out in her essays anyway? Might she write about her adoption or growing up Asian in a white family and trying to honor her heritage (which actually sound like really good topics and should not be avoided)? If so, moot point, check the box, don’t worry about it.
I think the most important question is how she feels about it and whether she might not be comfortable “hiding” her race. My son is half Japanese (my late husband was 2d gen American and did not speak the language, so no real diversity going on here other than our love of sushi and amine) and is very proud of his heritage. I think it would hurt his feelings if I instructed him to omit that information. He checks both boxes and I believe that it will have absolutely no impact on his applications (although I’m sure that after the fact they’ll stick him in their mixed race statistics when they publish the numbers, I have no illusions that it will get him “diversity points”). I think there are very few schools where being Asian hurts an applicant in a holistic review and some where it might help her a little – it just doesn’t help her a lot because she’s not an underrepresented minority.
As a practical matter – has she taken the PSAT, SAT or ACT? She may have already identified her race and the decision has been made (they definitely send that information to schools; my son has gotten Questbridge emails even though he specified that he would not be applying for financial aid). And if you are low income (under $65,000 household I think), you would need to disclose race to apply for Questbridge, which does treat asians as minorities.
I know a young woman whose last name is clearly latino (S. Am dad) and who did not identify as Hispanic on her application, and the adcom commented to the CC that they had noted it and thought it was odd – was she somehow ashamed of her background? I doubt this had any impact on where she got in or didn’t (and in her case, it would have been beneficial), but she felt that having been raised by a WASPy mom in a WASPy suburb identified her more than her dad’s heritage.
@higheredrocks I guess my thought is that checking or not checking the box has little to do with how she ‘feels’ about it. That said, yes, she may choose to write about something having to do with her ‘Chinese-ness’. Her situation is certainly not that unusual, so I’m not sure about that quite yet.
And, I’ve not instructed her one way or the other on the PSAT or ACT etc., so yes, she has probably identified there…so it may all be moot, except I’m not sure Adcoms see this information.
@gardenstategal That’s strange that an Adcom would think it odd that someone did not check a box. My understanding is that it is becoming fairly common, especially for Asians, not to check the box. The Adcom can’t think everyone’s ashamed of their heritage, I’m sure.
@2muchquan – I wasn’t a party to the conversation – heard the story from the mom, who in turn got the feedback from the CC, who initiated the conversation after this rather stellar kid was turned down, in the spirit of “we have a relationship and I’d appreciate your feedback on how that app read while there’s still time to change it for other schools”.
I can envision a scenario in which the file was pulled, the last name noted, and the adcom said something like “had she checked that box, it would have helped her app so why didn’t she give herself that advantage?.” And it could have been the CC who took it down the path of “oh no, it’s not what you think. It wasn’t that she’s ashamed of her heritage, but that she…” I don’t know how they got there (too many degrees away from the original conversation), and I wouldn’t read a ton into this. Just commenting that unless you go out of your way to hide it, it may be apparent somewhere else. Certainly, I didn’t mean to suggest that everyone who leaves the box empty has a reason to do so or that it’s assumed to be shame.
CB definitely sends racial information to colleges who buy sets of information for marketing purposes (e.g., minorities scoring over X score on the PSAT/SAT/ACT), but you’re right that adcoms might not cross-reference those lists with later applicants. I have no idea, but it’s possible. They all seem to know what my son’s intended major is.
You’re also right in thinking that checking no box will not be held against her – the few adcoms I know certainly don’t care (and wouldn’t think she was ashamed). I honestly don’t think either option will have any sort of impact – if she checks the box, they know that she’s not an URM; if she doesn’t, they assume that she’s not. Not identifying is a growing trend (among white students as much as Asians), but I truly don’t think there’s any real benefit unless Cal Tech is her first choice (and then she would be diverse because of her gender)
As a side note, my son has a classmate who is Asian, but whose last name sounds and appears Hispanic. They’ve discussed whether he should not identify a race in the hope that they mistake him for Hispanic (without doing anything affirmatively misleading). Similarly, our last name is not identifiable as Asian, but my son just made the decision that he didn’t want them to assume that he was Caucasian.
And, am I correct that you identify race only once in the Common App, and every school gets the same information? Or can you change it each time before submitting the app so different schools see different things (like for the essay, I think)?
It’s funny; I’m uncomfortable with gaming the system, but I also recognize that the system is so stacked against so many kids that it’s led to asking questions like this.
I feel like it’s a little sticky because I have friends with adopted kids from China, Russia, and India, and they are very cautious about saying or doing things that would hurt their adopted kids in ways that bio kids don’t experience.
Like, is your kid someday going to ask if you were ashamed of her being asian and not put it on the common app, even though the reality was you were simply working the system to your best benefit because asian kids are held to a higher standard from the POV of a lot of colleges?
I’m not saying this would be rational behavior on the kid’s side, I’m saying to consider every possible consequence to you not just answering what she is. The ripple effect on this question could be bigger than it appears.
My opinion is that selective colleges are interested in a kid’s “story.” Part of your daughter’s story is that she was adopted from China. I’d check the box.
If she identifies as Asian, I’d check the box. As she is active in Chinese cultural events and conversant in Mandarin, her racial identity will become clear to anybody who evaluates her complete application.
My son was adopted from China when he was 4. He was a special needs adoption. He spent 3 years in an orphanage, was undernourished, had some developmental delays, and has scoliosis and a connective tissue condition. We kept his Chinese first name (given to him by the orphanage), so whether or not we eventually list his racial background it’s obvious that he’s of Chinese origin (I’m caucasian and my wife is Indian). But it’s part of his “story”, as @Hunt notes, and when the time (down the road) comes for college, it will probably be relevant.
@2muchquan If your daughter plans to apply to moderately selective schools I absolutely would not check “Asian,” and I would use only the middle initial on application. Discrimination against Asians in higher education is pervasive and systematic. You should not assist colleges in their immoral and illegal discrimination.
There is no “bonus” for having been adopted from China. Many Asians who are suffering from discrimination come from poor families who have just arrived in the U.S., so background doesn’t change things.
