Name Change During College Admissions?

JimmyEatWorld711
Thu, 24 Mar 2005 22:01:28 +0000

Okay, here’s my situation. I’m a Chinese immigrant (came here in 1992) and now a junior in high school. My legal name is clearly Chinese, and is generally unpronounceable to non-Chinese speakers. However, everyone I know calls me Jimmy, a name that I adopted when I was 6. Literally no one except my Chinese relatives calls me by my Chinese name.

My parents and I have been considering a legal name change for quite some time now, so I won’t have to deal with such an unwieldy legal name in college and beyond. Is the end of junior year, when all the colleges already have my unpronounceable Chinese legal name on their files, and I’ve already got SAT/PSAT/AP scores under a certain name, a bad time to legally change my name?

Furthermore, is it a good idea to have a more common and pronounceable name for college application purposes? It seems to me that it would add a greater sense of familiarity and casualness as opposed to appearing to be a complete foreigner when an adcom reads my application.

Thanks for your feedback