<p>Writing well generally helps a person’s chances for getting in.</p>
<p>I’m debating whether I should just check off Caucasian, or both Caucasian and Latino. For latino, you have to put the country, which would be spain for me, even though i’m only slightly spanish. Would putting Latino - Spanish help at all?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It is an optional question, so you could mark nothing at all. Colleges don’t publish any figures that allow a firm guess as to how much it might “help” to indicate family origin from one country or another. </p>
<p>More FAQ information is in the first few posts of this thread, into which I’ve merged your Frequently Asked Question. </p>
<p>Good luck in your applications.</p>
<p>like many people have already said ive heard that not reporting your race on the college app is better… but i might as well anyway right? because not only is my last name Lee, the parent info section also requires me to tell them where my parenst were born (south korea), so obviously the college admissions can infer where im from</p>
<p>That’s less obvious than you might guess. From [post</a> #5](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1061012043-post5.html]post”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1061012043-post5.html): </p>
<p>From the Association for Institutional Research FAQ: </p>
<p>[FAQ</a> Race/Ethnicity Topics](<a href=“http://www.airweb.org/page.asp?page=1502]FAQ”>http://www.airweb.org/page.asp?page=1502) </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>so what do you suggest? should i just not report my race on the commonapp? i mean even if you say its less obvious than i might think, i feel like my last name and the fact that both my parents were born in south korea gives it away</p>
<p>What’s your concern?</p>
<p>I wasn’t sure this thread existed, and eh, I’m not really sure how this college thing works, not to mention race, but I know many people that are successful in admissions that did not attribute anything to race, so I don’t think it’s that important as much as other factors. I really think that you just put your race down and not worry about it as much. I’m really not sure about how all this socieconomic and AA, diversity, etc stuff works, so I can’t comment much on that.</p>
<p>I have now read enough of </p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> Strange Fruit: Why Both Sides are Wrong in the Race Debate: Kenan Malik: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Fruit-Sides-Wrong-Debate/dp/185168588X/]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Fruit-Sides-Wrong-Debate/dp/185168588X/) </p>
<p>to heartily recommend it as background reading for information about the issues we discuss in this thread. The author has a VERY different political point of view from mine, and grew up in a different country with different racial politics from the United States, but he refers to a lot of interesting sources from the United States and has hundreds of references to writings of other scholars, all tied together with his thoughtful and clear exposition. Definitely worth a read.</p>
<p>i have a problem with affirmative action because i think it is racist to assume minorities arent intelligent and unfair to all applicants
i think instead the entire section where someone puts their race on applications should be omitted, leaving the applications to be completely color blind
when that happens, true diversity will happen</p>
<p>The fact is that certain minorities usually are disadvantaged in some way, because the world isn’t the ideal, equal place you make it out to be, as sad as it is.</p>
<p>A “color blind” application would likely result in heavy favor toward more privileged races that statistically have a greater advantage in life and in education. True diversity isn’t as simple to achieve as you think.</p>
<p><em>sigh</em>. I miss back in the days when CC members would get into heated conversations because of threads dealing with this kind of subjects.</p>
<p>MODERATOR’S NOTE TO “what i think colleges should do” THREAD: </p>
<p>Merged into existing FAQ and discussion thread on this issue.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What’s the source of the disadvantage? Is it the minority status itself or is it something else?</p>
<p>Instead of generalizations, I suggest we look at actual data to see whether or not colorblind admissions result in a “heavy favor toward more privileged races.”</p>
<p>[Economic</a> Diversity](<a href=“http://www.economicdiversity.org%5DEconomic”>http://www.economicdiversity.org) shows that in 2005-2006, 27% of all students at UCBerkeley received Pell Grants. These students represented 47% of all aid applicants. The percentage of so-called “underrepresented” minorities totaled 17%. Let’s make two assumptions: all eligible students received Pell Grants and all "URM"s are poor. Then, this means that one out of every ten students at UCBerkeley is of a “privileged race” but poor. Given the size of Berkeley, that’s a lot of students.</p>
<p>At UCDavis, the numbers are comparable. 30% of all students received Pell Grants, and they represented 46% of all aid applicants. The total “URM” percentage is 16%. Following the same assumptions, then one out of every seven students at UCDavis is of a “privileged race” but poor.</p>
<p>Of course, it takes incredible naivete to believe that every “URM” student is poor. But, this means that more than one out of every ten and more than one out of every seven students at Berkeley and Davis, respectively, are “privileged racially” but poor! So much for your argument that colorblindness “… would likely result in heavy favor toward more privileged races that statistically have a greater advantage in life and in education.”</p>
<p>what do you mark under ‘race’?</p>
<p>sorry for the short question, I’m just curious…</p>
<p>Jewish is not a race.</p>
<p>It used to be a “race,” back when Irish was a “race.” See this thread:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/591600-interesting-article-arbitrariness-race-u-s.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/591600-interesting-article-arbitrariness-race-u-s.html</a></p>
<p>Nowadays it’s just “white” and Japanese, Chinese, and Korean are all separate “races” for gov’t (or college admissions) accounting purposes! Go figure.</p>
<p>The FAQ posts at the beginning of this thread link to the CURRENT federal definitions of the federally tracked categories. But the thread that mommusic just kindly linked to (posted by Northstarmom) links to an interesting article </p>
<p>[The</a> American Scholar - Leaving Race Behind - By Amitai Etzioni](<a href=“http://www.theamericanscholar.org/archives/sp06/leavingracebehind-etzioni.html]The”>http://www.theamericanscholar.org/archives/sp06/leavingracebehind-etzioni.html) </p>
<p>showing how arbitrary all these categories are. </p>
<p>By federal law, you are always permitted not to mark any category at all as a college applicant or college student. Colleges are required to ask, but you are not required to tell. Colleges are required to report to the federal government, but one LARGE category that they report is “race/ethnicity unknown.” </p>
<p>Good luck in your applications.</p>
<p>I applied Early Decision to an Ivy League school. I am of Spanish and Russian background; my last name is Russian because the Russian background comes from my father. I checked “Hispanic - Spain” on my application (and yes, I’ve been raised with Spanish culture and traditions from my mother’s side of the family). However, I just read a story on CC about another Spanish kid who applied to Harvard early, was deferred and asked to fill out a questionaire about his background. I need some answers from people who actually would know: is this likely to happen to me? Do admission offices typically defer early applications and do background checks on “URM” students who aren’t obviously URM? I know that Spanish isn’t generally considered a URM for AA benefits; I just want to know whether I should be worried about having to prove my background (and being deferred/rejected for it). I’m planning on telling my guidance counselor about my background tomorrow, but should I do anything further, like contact the admissions office or something?</p>
<p>If you gave an accurate description of your ethnic background, which it appears you did, you have nothing to be worried about.</p>