<p>Hi, I'm new to these forums.<br>
I'm sure this topic has been debated to the ends of the Earth, but it really affects me. I'm half Middle Eastern and half Indian, so I could be characterized as either White and/or Asian. I'm perfectly fine with reporting either of these, but I hear so much about how being "White" hurts your admission chances as well as how being "Asian" hurts your admission chances, as opposed to other minorities.</p>
<p>Is there a preferable choice in terms of admissions? And would picking both increase the hurt in anyway? Or would it be helpful at all (double negative -> positive :D) ? I'm very curious as to what I should do, as the amount I hear about admissions in regards to diversity, I'm sure there's many misconceptions I could possibly clear up here, which may make the decision a lot easier.</p>
<p>I'm planning on applying this fall as an undergraduate to many high tier schools eg: Rice, Stanford, Princeton, Harvard, and a bunch of others, so my anxiety over every tidbit and detail in this application process has finally pushed me to make an account :)</p>
<p>If you’re really concerned, or if you really thinks it makes a difference then leave it blank. I for one very much doubt that it makes a difference in the application process, and indeed, I don’t think it should.</p>
I did some research on the subject and it turns out Asians are at a significant disadvantage in comparison to Caucasians. An Asian is 3x less likely to be admitted into an Ivy League school as his roughly identical Caucasian counterpart.</p>
<p>A new study shows that poor white students are at an even greater disadvantage than Asian students. So if your family is poor, you’d be better off listing yourself as Asian. If youre a male, then definitely put Asian. I’ve heard that there are far fewer Asian males who excel and therefore aren’t getting slammed by admission committees like the Asian females are getting slammed.</p>
<p>^ Can you cite or link to this study? I’d like to read more about it; never heard such a thing before. In fact, I would even go as far as to say that I’ve heard the opposite of what you stated.</p>
<p>OP: “Other: Middle Eastern”
Done.</p>
<p>Even if you try to conceal your ethnicity (not implying that you are), adcoms can easily figure out your background from last name, college your parents graduated from (if outside US), any cultural activities you may participate in, and so on.</p>
<p>^Read the Espenshade/Radford study. It shows that elite colleges – especially the Ivies – are hardest on poor whites and those whites that appear from their applications as being politically conservative. “Lower class Asian applicants are seven times as likely to be accepted to the competitive private institutions as similarly qualified whites, lower-class Hispanic applicants eight times as likely, and lower-class blacks ten times as likely.” Poor whites who participate in activities that elite colleges deem to reflect conservative politics are in even worse shape. "Participation in such Red State activities as high school ROTC, 4-H clubs, or the Future Farmers of America was found to reduce very substantially a student’s chances of gaining admission to the competitive private colleges in the NSCE database on an all-other-things-considered basis. The admissions disadvantage was greatest for those in leadership positions in these activities or those winning honors and awards. "</p>
<p>As one of my professor friends once told me, “Colleges say they want diversity, but they one thing they fear most is diversity of thought. They want a rainbow of skin colors but only one type of political thinking on their campuses.” I worked at a well known elite campus for three summers. One of the funniest things I saw was a group of minority students who constantly talked about the importance of diversity, and then these same people threw away newletters from politically conservative campus groups and even shouted down a conservative speaker to the point where he had to leave the event without giving his speech. Diversity my butt.</p>
<p>The common application asks you to check “all that apply.” If I were you, I’d check Asian and White, and then write in Indian under Asian and Middle Eastern under White. I think the fact that you are of mixed background makes you more interesting.</p>
<p>Put down both, I’m sure that should have been easy for you to figure out.</p>
<p>Kids need to stop trying to choose the race that is most advantageous to them, and start choosing what they identify themselves as and what is correct.</p>
<p>50% Middle Eastern = 50% White
50% Indian = 50% Asian</p>
<p>I was very interested to read more about the Epenshade and Radford study. It does bring up some interesting and rather disturbing points. However, in doing some research about it, I came across a review called A Weak Defense of an Obsolete Idea by Martin Morse Wooster. If nothing else, I think it is important to note that the data for the study was gathered in 1997 from only a handful of colleges. </p>
<p>(Excerpt…)
Espenshade and Radford use as the core of their book a survey called the National Study of College Experience, which includes data from eight colleges and universities. We do not know which these eight schools are, except they are among the 34 Bowen and Bok studied for The Shape of the River. We do know that the authors originally were going to include ten schools, but decided not to use two historically black colleges because they decided that those schools were not representative of the typical American university.</p>
<p>The authors say the identities of the schoolsand the information in their dataset–cannot be divulged because the schools supplied the data on the condition that it not be made public because it contained confidential information about students. But good social science is based on research that can be fact-checked and replicated by other scholars. Surely there must be a way to supply the database to reputable researchers while stripping out any references that would identify particular individuals.</p>
<p>Finally, it should be noted that the survey Espenshade and Radford conducted was for 1997, and readers are supposed to assume that data collected 13 years ago describes todays colleges and students. It is far from certain that this assumption is valid.</p>
<p>I’m half Korean, half German (lol, definitely not an advantageous combination).
I had that very same dilemma, but I just decided that I’m going to put both.
I know what they say about Asians and Whites concerning college admissions, but I figure there’s no way around it.
I can’t change my ethnicity and even if I don’t fill in an ethnicity, they’ll assume I’m either White or Asian just by my last name (it could actually go both ways, oddly enough).
And besides, they probably know that if you leave it blank, you must be Asian or White anyway because a URM would most definitely take advantage of the situation.
I know I would.
But let’s just hope that it’s our skills that get us into colleges, not our debatably disadvantageous ethnicities.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the replies, and sorry I took so long responding!
I think I’ll probably just put both in the end I guess. I identify more as white in general, like on all the stuff in life that only gives you one option, but upon hitting this on the apps it became a roadblock of sorts. Hopefully this all turns out ok then :)</p>
<p>Is there any analysis of how colleges view subraces? You’d think that they would matter more than the larger categories - for example, Filipinos don’t tend to do nearly as well as other Asian subgroups.</p>