<p>Write about it in your essay/additional information. Yes I think it is pretty suspicious, you could have not answered the question or put down other or unknown.</p>
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<p>All college ethnicity questions are optional, on all college forms (by law), so you also have the choice of simply not checking any box. A lot of young people who are “biracial” face the issue of what box to check by checking more than one or checking none at all. I’m sure that situations in which an applicant is unsure what to mark, as well as sheer human inadvertence, mean that many applicants make inconsistent markings on different college forms (not to mention that college forms aren’t all consistent with one another), so I wouldn’t worry about that too much. </p>
<p>If you’d like to have colleges treat you as a black applicant who has grown up in a favorable environment, you can describe yourself that way in the college essays in which you describe your learning context. Your high school counselor or a teacher who writes a recommendation can back up such a self-description. Each college will decide what your life context means for evaluating your application. </p>
<p>Good luck in your applications.</p>
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<p>As another reply above noted, this is an extremely frequently discussed issue here, and the thread-opening post I’m quoting in this reply has just been merged into the FAQ and discussion thread. </p>
<p>If findings are eventually officially released in the Jian Li case at Princeton, </p>
<p>[Department</a> of Education expands inquiry into Jian Li bias case - The Daily Princetonian](<a href=“http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2008/09/08/21307/]Department”>http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2008/09/08/21307/) </p>
<p>those may provide some insight into recent practices at one highly selective university. What each university does in the admission process with student self-identification by race and ethnicity is hard to determine, because universities generally don’t publish data that would allow independent researchers to gauge the effect of differing self-identifications on admission probability. </p>
<p>It’s always possible, and always legal, to decline to self-identify by race or ethnicity. If you want to be known just as a human being who is applying to your favorite colleges, don’t mark any checkbox on any college forms. See [post</a> #1](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1061011997-post1.html]post”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1061011997-post1.html) of this thread for statements that self-identification is optional. See [post</a> #3](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1061012027-post3.html]post”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1061012027-post3.html) for evidence of the national trend of increasing numbers of students declining to self-identify by race or ethnicity. See [post</a> #4](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1061012037-post4.html]post”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1061012037-post4.html) for astoundingly high figures of students who don’t self-identify who are still admitted to great colleges. And see [post</a> #5](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1061012043-post5.html]post”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1061012043-post5.html) for guidance from the Association for Institutional Research reminding colleges that they are neither required nor expected to guess about student ethnicity or race if the students decline to self-identify. </p>
<p>Good luck in your applications.</p>
<p>Hey everyone,</p>
<p>I was just wondering if I will actually get “bonus points” if:</p>
<p>my mom didn’t go to college but my dad got an AA degree at a Community college,</p>
<p>and</p>
<p>I’m about a 1/4 mexican, 1/4 spanish, and a little german/native american</p>
<p>Should I only mark mexican / white? My last name is Gomez if that changes anything…</p>
<p>It’d be great to hear some thoughts on this, thanks!</p>
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<p>As you see, I merged your question into the existing FAQ and discussion thread on ethnic self-identification in college applications because there is reference information in the first few posts here that will help you. To answer your other issue, quoted above, colleges each decide for themselves how they define “first generation” college students. At some colleges you might be defined that way, but maybe not at other colleges, because your father attended college and completed a two-year degree program. </p>
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<p>You are permitted to mark anything that fits your real situation. You are also permitted to mark nothing at all. It has been and will continue to be the law that college students are not required to self-identify with any race or ethnic group unless they want to. </p>
<p>Next year, most college forms should follow the federal regulation that says by next year that those forms should first ask a yes or no question about Hispanic ethnicity and then a second question asking “choose one or more” from the federally defined race categories. This year most college application forms are not organized that way. </p>
<p>What your last name is shouldn’t cause a college to guess one way or the other. Not everyone identifies with an ethnicity commonly associated with a particular name, and not all family names are associated with just one ethnicity. The Census Bureau has done much study of this, and there are people with your family name who don’t self-identify as Hispanic when asked. </p>
<p>Good luck in your applications.</p>
<p>Thanks for moving it/responding!</p>
<p>This is a great thread with a lot of useful information. I think I’ll identify with Mexican/chicano, white, and/or Hispanic. I won’t mention the native american because I’m too estranged from that ethnicity to identify with it. </p>
<p>It seems I might not be considered a full “URM” and “first generation” but my pseduo-status as these two might give my application a small boost.</p>
<p>Yep, every college gets to define what it is looking for, so you may as well describe your own situation, apply widely, and see what happens.</p>
<p>My friend has been talking to me about this. We’re both born in America, but my parents come from India while his from Pakistan (We’re both Hindu though, not Muslim). . No college admissions officer will ever answer it, but are there advantages from coming from India and disadvantages from Pakistan since Pakistan is associated with the terrorists of the Middle East (he’s from Lower Pakistan, FAR FROM the tribal areas and Islamabad).</p>
<p>He’s wondering if he shouldn’t put which college or city his parents came from because then the colleges may look down upon him in some way. Both his parents got M.D.s, but I think on common app you have to list the college they got the degree from. How do coming from India and Pakistan appear to Adcoms? Would it look bad if he attempts to say his parents got M.D.s, but never lists their country of origin or college (if he puts that, they can trace it to Pakistan which he’s worried will give him a disadvantage).</p>
<p>Tell your friend not to worry about this. If the adcoms were to be caught discriminating this way, they would be fired because it is ILLEGAL. Not to mention that most of the adcoms are going to be reading so many applications so fast that all they are going to notice is that it is a foreign degree that is not from Oxford, the Sorbonne, Moscow U or one of the other 5 or 10 places whose names they recognize. Parents with any kind of college degree from anywhere in the world means that the kid isn’t a “first generation” applicant (which is worth a point or two at some colleges/universites), and that the degree is not from the university the kid is applying to, means that the kid isn’t a “legacy” (which is worth a point or two at some colleges/universities). That’s why they ask these questions on the application.</p>
<p>Well, my father moved here from Syria when he was 23. So I am am half Syrian. I’m white, but technically speaking is it true to say that I am also Asian (because Syria is a part of Asia)? I’m confused on whether to check the white box, the asian box or both.</p>
<p>Adcoms will never explicitly discriminate, but I think he’s more worried that the word “Pakistan” will have some negative impact if the Adcom is someone who happens to have something against it. So it would look even worse for both of us to put nothing for Country of Origin though than to put India/Pakistan?</p>
<p>You descend from Asia, you don’t have to be born there, so yes put Asia.</p>
<p>I’m sure this has been said elsewhere on the site, but colleges want to know who you are. How well you are able to show them this will have more of an effect than whether you are from one country versus another. Colleges also are interested in diversity of all types. Your friend probably has some unique insights on what it is like to be Hindu growing up in Pakistan. Why would he want to hide this? Colleges are meant to be places where students are exposed to others with different backgrounds, upbringings, and beliefs in the hope that by meeting people who are different they learn and grow. Admissions officers are not going to be jumping to any conclusions about your friend just because he’s from Pakistan. If he tries to hide who he is and the background that made him who he is, he may end up forcing them to jump to the conclusion that he is boring and would not have much to add to their community.</p>
<p>Hes halve though</p>
<p>I respectfully disagree with RahoulVA-yes, genetically, you are both, but it is more (I think) about what you identify yourself as. If someone asked what you are, would you answer Caucasian, Asian, or both? Put whatever you would answer. I am part Puerto Rican (easily enough to put it on an application), but I would answer that question ‘Caucasian’, so that is what I put (even though I know it would have helped me to put Puerto Rican-but I don’t really identify myself as such).</p>
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<p>[post</a> #2](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1061012008-post2.html]post”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1061012008-post2.html) of this FAQ thread, into which the question was merged, provides the answer. The United States federal definitions say that people from Syria are white. </p>
<p>Of course, you are always free under United States law to leave the question entirely unanswered. That’s to you. But the expected answer for your situation is white and not any other answer.</p>
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<p>As the reply above already said, invidious discrimination is illegal and every admission committee should know better than to discriminate on grounds prohibited by law. That said, there is no legal requirement at all to indicate your race or ethnicity, so your friend can choose not to check any box about that and not to indicate anything about his country of origin. But he may be just as well off to be sure to mention that, as every college is trying to find a variety of students to fill the entering class. Colleges don’t publish statistics that allow a firm inference about what gives your friend the best admission chances. But he wouldn’t want to be anywhere where people don’t welcome him, would he? So he may as well say what’s important to HIM about his background (which might indeed be that he feels he is just part of humanity, just like anyone else) and make sure he gets into a college where he will be welcome.</p>
<p>Man, RahoulVa, it sounds like the interpretative bias you’re worried about in being associated with “Pakistan” stems more from your own prejudiced feelings than any real, legitimate concerns. I wouldn’t assume the first thing a college admissions officer thinks of when he hears “Pakistani” is terrorist. </p>
<p>Oh yeah, tribal areas represent.</p>
<p>i know a negro in my class who has 800s in SAT math and science subject tests. im asian and i have 800s as well and our test scores and everything are the same. we are both applying to the same schools for the most part. i will tell you who gets in and who deosnt. spoiler alert he’s going to get in.</p>
<p>Haha, I think the term Negro became antiquated several decades ago, Rule. Now it’s seen more along the lines of an ethnic slur, just fyi.</p>