I’m about to be a senior and will be applying to college in a few months and I haven’t decided what race would be most beneficial to use on college applications. I am a female of mixed race. My mother is from Indonesia and my father is white. I always thought putting Asian would benefit me because of Affirmative Action but I’m not so sure anymore. My older brother who is in college advised me to put “prefer not to answer” on my applications if that’s an option or if it’s not, claim white. He told me that by using Asian I will be compared to all the other super-genius Asians applying and thus, my chances will not be as great. By not answering the race questions, I cannot be compared to anyone else based on race. So, is he right? Should I not say that I’m Asian?
I say you should put down Black. After all, everyone outside Africa is a descendant of African people from about 30,000 years ago. So, it’s in your blood! And since a person can become whatever gender he or she feels like (a la Caitlyn Jenner), why can’t you be whatever race you feel like being (a la Rachel Dolezal), at least until admission decisions have been made? In the meantime, you may need to invest in suntan appointments though, and find a good hair stylist.
For those of you that are humor impaired, that was sarcasm. IMHO, admission should not be affected by race at all, and it has no place on an application for admission. Furthermore, I think that a person’s name (and race, if its required for federal reporting purposes) should be disassociated from the part of the application that admissions officers read.
OP, to actually answer your question, I think you should put down white.
I too am in this struggle with a Vietnamese mother and a white father, and I have decided to put down other where I can. I’m having issues denying either sides of my heritage. I have heard from other friends that when applying to private schools, putting down Asian can be beneficial especially if there is a small population of them at that particular school.
If you’re using the common app, you can’t change your race school to school. So if you’re applying to those northeastern LAC’s, then putting down ‘Asian’ might be a little more beneficial as few asian kids go there, while if you’re applying to Ivies, I think putting white down would be a little bit more beneficial as the ivies already have too many asians applying.
But, race is not an extremely big factor in admissions especially when it’s white/asian (Both ORM’s at most selective schools) so I wouldn’t really stress about it. There is a infinitesimal difference whether you put asian, white, or prefer not to answer.