College Discussion - View Single Post - Fastest-Growing Ethnic Category at Great Colleges: "Race Unknown"

tokenadult · 01-31-2008, 09:34 AM

I have heard from posters on CC of a great variety of ethnic backgrounds that "I didn't check any box on the form," in some cases because the applicants would feel better knowing that they got in without consideration of that issue, in other cases because their "multiracial" background doesn't fit the categories well anyway, and in quite a few cases because the students want to emphasize their common humanity with other students. I don't speculate on other people's motives for doing what they do--I certainly don't attribute unseemly motives to people I have never met. The way to find out why a growing number of students don't fill out the ethnic self-identification forms (so much so that some colleges now report 15 percent of their applicants as "race unknown") is to ask a scientifically formed sample of those students in a carefully designed survey. I'm not aware of any researcher who has done that, so I won't speculate further on this issue.

I also don't speculate on whether or not students self-reporting their ethnicity is something "that might help in their admissions." There is MUCH speculation, in dozens of threads on CC, that that is so, and there have been legal findings in particular cases at particular colleges that that was so in previous years, but there is also not good evidence of what impact ethnic self-identification has in the admission process TODAY at many highly desired colleges. Many colleges engage in targeted recruitment of "underrepresented minorities" as best they can, and I strongly support such efforts, and of course the federal government does require colleges to ask, even if students don't tell, about ethnic affiliation of applicants. But some colleges these days are making offers of admission to hundreds of students for whom their best information is "race unknown" and whose motives for leaving the OPTIONAL self-identification form unmarked are completely unknown. Those colleges don't seem to suffer any lack of day in, day out diversity on campus and seem to be highly desirable to students from all over the world of every which kind of ethnic background.

01-31-2008, 09:34 AM	#206
tokenadult Super Moderator Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: MN Posts: 11,907	I have heard from posters on CC of a great variety of ethnic backgrounds that "I didn't check any box on the form," in some cases because the applicants would feel better knowing that they got in without consideration of that issue, in other cases because their "multiracial" background doesn't fit the categories well anyway, and in quite a few cases because the students want to emphasize their common humanity with other students. I don't speculate on other people's motives for doing what they do--I certainly don't attribute unseemly motives to people I have never met. The way to find out why a growing number of students don't fill out the ethnic self-identification forms (so much so that some colleges now report 15 percent of their applicants as "race unknown") is to ask a scientifically formed sample of those students in a carefully designed survey. I'm not aware of any researcher who has done that, so I won't speculate further on this issue. I also don't speculate on whether or not students self-reporting their ethnicity is something "that might help in their admissions." There is MUCH speculation, in dozens of threads on CC, that that is so, and there have been legal findings in particular cases at particular colleges that that was so in previous years, but there is also not good evidence of what impact ethnic self-identification has in the admission process TODAY at many highly desired colleges. Many colleges engage in targeted recruitment of "underrepresented minorities" as best they can, and I strongly support such efforts, and of course the federal government does require colleges to ask, even if students don't tell, about ethnic affiliation of applicants. But some colleges these days are making offers of admission to hundreds of students for whom their best information is "race unknown" and whose motives for leaving the OPTIONAL self-identification form unmarked are completely unknown. Those colleges don't seem to suffer any lack of day in, day out diversity on campus and seem to be highly desirable to students from all over the world of every which kind of ethnic background.