<p>They ask for parent’s birthplace on the commonapp</p>
<p>how does that help them in anyway. couldn’t they look up people?</p>
<p>They care because it gives them information about your background. Just like the way they’d like to know if (and where) your parents went to college. Not to mention that occasionally it may pitch a student into the pile of students qualified for some random scholarship because of the parent(s)’ history.</p>
<p>And no, you can’t just look people up easily. To figure out just exactly where asheroth’s parents are from (as opposed to the parents of acheroth, ascherot, asheroh, and all the rest) they would need more information than most parents would want to reveal, and they would need more time for the job than they can afford to spend when they have to read a bazillion applications.</p>