My daughter thought long and hard before checking the Asian box on her application. It wasn’t that she thought it would hurt her admission chances, it’s just that she doesn’t identify with being Asian. At all. She did check it in the end because I suggested it might help the school when reporting statistics.
But she could just as well have not checked it and then it wouldn’t appear in the NCAA statistics. She was not recruited because she is a minority (in fact, the coach was quite surprised when this little Asian kid with the Irish name walked up on the overnight visit!). Her school isn’t short on minorities at all.
It was just a box on the application.