Hi, my son is finished with his common app, but before we turn it in I wanted to ask a quick question. I am a Navy brat who was born in Japan, but I am not Japanese. My son self-identified as white on the app, but I want to be sure to give accurate information. Should we clarify this in additional information area of the application?
I don’t think this is unusual. Many people are born in one place and raised in another. My friend was born in Louisiana but her brother and sister were born in Japan. The boy who lived across the street from me was born in the middle of the Pacific ocean, on a Navy ship.
It’s good to be accurate but you’re overthinking this. For you, being accurate IS stating that you were born in Japan. The colleges won’t care/notice in your circumstance.
I think it’s admirable that this parent is concerned about being truthful / accurate, given all the other threads by kids who are trying to figure out how to claim ethnicity they are not!
Thank you so much for all of the advice! I am going to have him leave his application as is. Will be so glad when they are all in!
it does not matter, you were born on american soil. john mccain the senator /former presidential candidate was born in panama . his father was in the military stationed in panama. mitt romney’s dad was born in mexico and he ran for U.S. president back in the 1960’s. (40+ years before mitt)
I think what your really you are asking is…if it will be some diversity type thing that will give your son a leg up, the answer is no.
@zobroward, that’s not what the OP was asking at all, though it is understandable why you would think so, given all the threads about people wondering if they can fake something or other to get in. The OP just wondered if it would be confusing to the ad comms, given that her son self-reported as white. She didn’t want to give the impression that his mother was Japanese. I don’t know the OP, but I used my critical reading skills to figure this out. Go back and reread her question.
My kids are very Caucasian…and reported as such on their college applications. My husband was a U.S. citizen born in Thailand…and he put that. It was not an issue. It is what it is.
massmomm
"My son self-identified as white on the app, but I want to be sure to give accurate information. "
after I re-read it before I posted my previous post… I figured with pretty good certainty that is what the OP was really wanting to know. maybe I am wrong but that sentence is what stood out to me.
John McCain was born to US citizen parents in the Panama Canal Zone, which was a US territory at the time. George Romney was born in Mexico to US citizen parents. Both acquired US citizenship at birth according to the laws of the time.
Although there has not been a Supreme Court case about whether someone was eligible for President based on the “natural-born citizen” requirement, it is usually assumed that this means someone who acquired US citizenship at birth.
Not that this has anything to do with the OP’s question.
ucbalumns that was never in question. as with the OP being born in japan on a U.S. military base is the same as being born in Dayton ohio. and it does not change your ethnicity, national origin ,race…etc.(I have heard every twist on this one)
@BetsyRay : I would specify the actual place of birth if there is room. For some purposes, I use Jacksonville. NC, which is accurate. For other purposes, I use US Naval Hospital, Camp Lejeune, NC. which is also accurate but more precise. If you can do something like that (e.g., US Naval Hospital, Okinawa), I think any reviewers will get the picture.
Zobroward, you owe the OP an apology. It was crystal clear she didn’t want to inadvertently and mistakenly give an impression she (and hence her son) was of Japanese ancestry. It’s clear she wasn’t trying to pull any fast one or misrepresent anything.
pizzagirl…why would that be??? I said “I THINK what your really you are asking is” that is how I understood it. and simply pointed out that if that was the question than the answer is… no it will not give them a leg up. you read the OP one way I read it another.
@Pizzagirl and @zobroward : I suggest you continue your “conversation” by PM.
AboutTtheSame …that conservation is over. nothing more to discuss. (we all get to have an opinion and luckily the world is full over different opinions, not a big deal)
@zobroward : I was not suggesting that you were not entitled to have an opinion, but your disagreement was off topic and not helpful to the OP. That is the sort of behavior hat can get a thread closed by the moderators – which helps no one.
*It was off topic because it tried to read the OP’s mind/i. Why not just ask first why they asked in order to confirm your cynicism, or else take the question at face value. Especially since the OP had just said in the post right before that they felt the question was answered and the matter was settled. The OP obviously worried, needlessly I think but still they did, that putting down that he is white but then saying one parent was born in Japan might be confusing. It helped this thread in not one way I can think of to infer motives other than being clear about ethnicity, since colleges continue to ask about it. Besides your “thought” makes no sense as far as I can tell. If the motive were to try and appear to have “unusual” heritage, why would they ask to clarify that he is 100% white instead of just putting down the ambiguous answer? It would have been perfectly accurate. But by adding those comments based on inferences rather than facts, it did indeed take the thread wandering off to Panama, Mexico, and who knows where the next stop would have been.
I think you can also see, even if it wasn’t your intention, that by even suggesting to the OP that might have been her motive you could have indeed insulted her. And she would have been well within her rights to have inferred the insult.
Closing thread since OP was happy several posts ago with the answer, but let’s try and answer simple questions simply until there is real evidence there is more to it. After what happened to an OP who asked the VERY simple question about which midnight the Jan. 1 deadline meant, and getting skewered about time management and other negative comments, my antenna is really up about this. If the question only seems simple but possibly really isn’t? Don’t assume, clarify.*