Not in the Demographics Section?

Applying to College Common and Coalition Application
1

<p>I was born in the US, from parents who were immigrants from Taiwan. As a result, my language spoken at home is the dying dialect of Taiwanese, present in the older generations and extremely rare in the younger ones. However, Taiwanese is not listed under the drop-down list in the Common App. I’ve consulted the “Help” section, and they said they would update certain fields sometime in the fall, but what should I do if the language is not supported? </p>

<p>Taiwanese is generally a spoken language, as opposed to a written one, if that has anything to do with anything.</p>

2

<p>Why not just put down Chinese? It shouldn’t matter that much.</p>

3

<p>It makes a huge difference. And the fact that you’re suggesting that it doesn’t sounds awfully racist -.-</p>

<p>“Why not just group them together, they’re all the same anyway.”</p>

4

<p>I believe Calico was referring to the admissions process. It shouldn’t effect you too much if the language is Chinese or Taiwanese. Of course, maybe it will because of how common the Chinese language is.</p>

5

<p>^^<em>sigh</em> I meant that it probably would not matter much for the person reading your application, since I seriously doubt you’ll be admitted or rejected based on which dialect of Chinese you happen to be speaking at home. If it’s that important to you to get it perfectly right, you can certainly make a note about it in the additional info section.</p>

<p>Also, perhaps Taiwanese is not listed on the Common App because they counted it as a form of Chinese :confused:? Did you check the wikipedia article on the current classification of Chinese languages?</p>

<p>[Chinese</a> language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language]Chinese”>Chinese language - Wikipedia)</p>

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<p>Well, I happen to be Chinese, and I know that a friend of mine who is Taiwanese frequently put down “Chinese” on his applications when the other option is not available. Again, I don’t think it matters that much for the common app.</p>

6

<p>Haha okay it’s all good then :). </p>

<p>I just count them as distinct languages since if you put one Mandarin-speaking and one Taiwanese-speaking person in the same room, a coherent conversation would be impossible. </p>

<p>Of course the language difference won’t have any significant impact on my application, I just thought it would be neat if I could stand out; I don’t know anyone else my age (even my cousins back in Taiwan) who can speak Taiwanese. I guess I’ll just specify it in my Additional Information. </p>

<p>Thanks!</p>