One of my friend’s D will be a senior next year. She is very fair skinned and has long, straightish blond hair, but she identifies as black. Because she is. Her father is black, she was raised within the black community, is a member of a black church and has always considered herself black. In fact, her father was a very high profile victim of a racially-motivated crime. I’ve known the family since she was three, and they always get snarked about the daughter’s race until the snarkers meet her dad (mom is blond also and is usually the one at school or EC events). I really hope she doesn’t get any nonsense when she’s applying.</p>
<p>if you are checking for a college app, and are unsure, it seems to me the ethical thing to do is to call up and ASK the college what they have in mind.</p>
<p>ISTR years ago seeing things saying that for a purpose similar to this, you are black IF the folks in your community who know you consider you black, ditto for hispanic, etc. Which seemed logical - if the idea is to offset discrimination, then if you are too invisible to be known as group X, how could you suffer discrimination as group X - on the other hand if you ARE identified as group X, the exact complexion of your skin or whatever isnt relevant. I am not sure if the colleges use those standards today though.</p>
<p>In the case of my DS1, not marking the box was not even a question. The soul searching came when he became a NHRP Scholar and there were scholarship opportunities to consider. That’s when we had the long talk with the people who administrate the NHRP Scholarship programs at several schools. They all encouraged us to apply to their schools. These schools sincerely want to enroll the Chilean German girls, the 1/4 Argentinian Jews and the 1/2 Mestizo girls from NM. Their presence in the school adds to their diversity and improves the school’s attractiveness and receptiveness to other Hispanic students.</p>
<p>There was an African American woman who was in my law school who told us that she purposely didn’t check the Af-Am box because she wanted to know that she got into law school “on her own merit”. The fact that she felt the need to tell us all this story brings up the dark side of all of this box checking…any accomplishments by a minority student are assumed by many to be a result of racial preference, and not talent, hard work and deserved merit.</p>
<p>These are very real issues for talented minorities. It would be awful to always wonder whether you got something because of some box you checked.</p>
<p>I have an African-American co-worker who kept getting put on all the search committees. Her husband asked: “Well, you know why they want you, don’t you?” It hadn’t occured to her that they needed representation. Her children are very bright and they get snarky comments at their universities about why they got in to the programs they are in. They got in on their qualifications. It is a double-edged sword.</p>
<p>Who in the heck can you be “unsure” of one’s own ethnicity or race? What have you been doing for the last 18 years (kid or parent)? Do you know your religion, favorite TV shows, what!?!?</p>
<p>Next, I think I will read on this thread that Obama needs to choose black or white . . . and if he chooses black, he’s gaming the system!?!? But, if the OP is actually trying to game the system . . . well that is indeed a horse of a different color. Also, being afraid that you will be accused of gaming the system, or will be considered a token, well, that is EQUALLY BAD!</p>
<p>WHAT ETHNICITY DO YOU REALLY ASSOCIATE YOURSELF WITH??? </p>
<p>Answer that question honestly . . . then you’ll be set.</p>
<p>"WHAT ETHNICITY DO YOU REALLY ASSOCIATE YOURSELF WITH??? "</p>
<p>well the rest of the year I am ashkenazic Jew, but with Passover coming up, I think I might switch to Sephardic for a while. Surely SOMEONE made it from Spain up to Lithuania?</p>
<p>My children are in a similar situation as OP’s but actually a little clearer–their grandmother (my MIL) is Salvadoran born and raised and a native Spanish speaker. The entire family (including my husband and his Anglo father) speak fluent Spanish. Husband was born in the US but the family lived in San Salvador for several years during his elementary school years (prior to being forced to return to the US due to the revolution when DH was in seventh grade). Does my husband consider himself Hispanic? Yes, definitely. I am Anglo. Have we ever considered our children Hispanic? No, and we did not check the box for the PSAT. Maybe we should have, the kids clearly qualify. But, at the time it did not pass my personal ethics test. Even though we COULD do it, it doesn’t mean we should. I would LOVE to be persuaded otherwise, though!<br>
Our oldest is a junior who has taken four years of Spanish, so he is fairly fluent. He has been to El Salvador multiple times for family weddings and such. He got over a 200 on the PSAT, so may actually have qualified for an award if he had marked Hispanic. Maybe we should consider marking the box for college apps and for his younger sisters. It just doesn’t feel right, though.</p>
<p>NO!!! WordWorld, if you IDENTIFY your family as __<strong><em>, then check </em></strong>. Don’t EVER do it for any other reason!!! That was my point.</p>
<p>OK, my first impression is that this whole thing sounds kind of sleazy. But now I’m thinking my kid should check the Native American box. What the hell, maybe throw in a few fake ECs and awards as well.</p>
<p>Just kidding. Don’t check the box. You know it’s wrong, and you’ll be teaching your kid that it’s OK to cheat.</p>
<p>Since we seem to be saying the same thing over and over…it occured to me…ref another “viral” CC Parent thread the past 24 hours that implied that being Asian is a negative when applying for college (specifically the ivies)…Should my friend’s kids check Asian or not? They are 50%/50%.</p>
<p>Sorry for the post highjack, I think Asian is very possibly a negative because (please don’t flame me) children of Asian parent(s) are often high-achieving. I know of what I speak, my son’s school is about 1/3 Asian and a lot of their parents really, um, focus on academics (and piano or violin!). My son hangs out with a lot of these kids because he is high-achieving himself and that is where he seems to fit best. While the Tiger Mom was an extreme, she was not completely unfamiliar in my neighborhood. (BTW, she wrote a very interesting book, I think she has been unfairly slammed by people who haven’t actually read the book but just the excerpts).<br>
Concerning the above post, Asian is a race, not an ethnicity. If they are 50/50, I think they can choose which race to put down, conscience clear.</p>
<p>LOL, Brooklynborndad. In a case I am intimately familiar with, the H is Ashkenazic and the W is Sephardic. Every Passover, the W wants to eat rice, but the H says the household is Ashkenazic.</p>
<p>What should their child mark if the Hebrew School asks them to indicate whether they are Sephardic or Non-Sephardic, and telling them that the child should be at least 1/4 Sephardic to mark the first option?</p>
<p>checking the box aside, i’m really trying to understand why so many people have a hard time processing that AFRICAN-AMERICAN does not equal all black people worldwide! people use these terms interchangeably…why??? african-american only refers to black people who were born in the UNITED STATES of AMERICA. a black south african would not be african-american (nor, of course, would a white person born in any african country)… a black person born in the uk, papua new guinea, germany, or jamaica would not be african-AMERICAN, et cetera. why is that so hard to comprehend???</p>
<p>Well, I’m not crazy about it, but at one of my state’s two well regarded flagships, there is a very good chance that your child would get a scholarship simply because you checked that box. Your child is truthfully half Hispanic, so if I were you I would not feel bad about checking it. The reason I’m not crazy about the scholarships for minorities is because there are very few to no scholarships for many others with very good stats, etc., unless they are literally National Merit or their families make below $40,000 per year. The school is simply trying to up their numbers of minorities, and if your child is half Hispanic they can include her in those stats, whether she had any Hispanic cultural upbringing or not. I would understand this, but honestly resent the almost complete lack of scholarship monies for many other very high achieving kids. And tuition has gone up and up and up. It seems to me that basing scholarship money on what the student would contribute to the school other than a stat they can check off would be a better investment of public money. I would also understand it if these students were poor minorities without much familial background in exposure to higher education. But for my child to get turned down for scholarships and one given to a student with lower stats that doesn’t even speak Spanish and has more money than our family, only because he has an Hispanic surname, well something’s off.</p>
<p>The problem is that when people are a blend of backgrounds it is hard to check just one box and that is what we are asked to do.</p>
<p>If I were stating my background I would say American/American based on where my parents were born. (Russian/ Russian/Russian/ Austrian–based on grandparents)</p>
<p>My husband would say Argentinian/Czech based on where his parents were born.</p>
<p>So my children are Argentinian/ Czech and American based on their parents background. They are also of Russian and Austrian heritage a generation back. </p>
<p>But they are asked to check only one box! Hence, my call to College Board asking what to do. Their response was to check Hispanic since that is legitimately a part of their background. Clearly kids would be happy to check more boxes to further define who they are, but those options aren’t being considered and are not available to check off.</p>
<p>For the PSAT theywere told to check Hispanic.
For the common app they have the chance to check both Hispanic and white.</p>
<p>“Since we seem to be saying the same thing over and over…it occured to me…ref another “viral” CC Parent thread the past 24 hours that implied that being Asian is a negative when applying for college (specifically the ivies)…Should my friend’s kids check Asian or not? They are 50%/50%.”</p>
<p>My son is adopted from Korea. He checked the box. Most of the schools he applied were schools where Asians are URM. He got into all 9 schools he applied too, including one very selective school.</p>