Affirmative Action: Should an Asian American student applying to college declare his/her race and ethnicity on a college application?

As others have already stated, your name is your calling card for race anyway. On the other hand, if you do not declare your race,  schools will enter your data as 'no race' and this helps them keep the percentage of Asians that the public will see at a lower rate. For some schools, this is quite important as they fear having too many 'Asians,' if only in the reported data, would look bad. Schools would never be able to tell you this, but from a betting perspective it is worth your not putting race at those schools whose percentages of Asians is well above the national demographics

I think most of the reasons have already been covered here However for the Quora credits, I'm going to repost my answer What is a good applicant? Are Asian Americans being selected in lower numbers because of discrimination or rather because their SAT scores don't show the complete picture. SAT scores are nice. So is getting a 4.0 GPA and being the valedictorian of your class. However, if you talk to admissions officers from Elite Schools, they will always brag about how they declined soooo many PERFECT STUDENTS with their 4.0 GPAs, 2400 SATs and potential valedictorian status. I was a ok student. I had great grades but not the best. I wasn't in the running to be a valedictorian. My SATs were good but not perfect. My numbers had to be good for me to be considered to be accepted but they weren't the only reasons that I should have been accepted. I would like to say that being an All-region wrestler helped even though I wasn't being recruited. I would say that starting a Model UN team was good even though I was going to be an engineer. I would say that my personal statement about my failures made me aware of my weaknesses. Maybe my interview that drifted far far away from academics showed that I wasn't a one trick pony. Now that I am college interviewer, I would ask that people look at it from a different angle. As Jim Bob alluded to, elite schools (for some financial reasons) aren't looking for good students, they are looking for people who they believe will be the "captains of industry or cultural thought leaders". If I'm interviewing, how would I recommend a quiet unambitious child, who never took risks in their life, is only motivated by their parents, and ten year plan is to go to an "elite" school and get a high paying job compared to a dynamic adventurer, who has already made a startup, moved eight times and excelled wherever they went, and now wants to go to college to learn how to run a non-profit to solve human trafficking? Citing the Anon user: In other words, the research does not exclude the possibility that non-Asian students with the same quantitative variables as Asian students tend to have more impressive applications over all, and this could account for the 50-point SAT score bias. Elite schools have the ability to look at the complete candidate compared to a school like Berkeley (or Michigan for that matter). There are also various other constraints on the admissions process once you consider athletes, legacies, and donors, groups that many would argue would not represent Asian Americans in large numbers. When you consider all of these factors and start to involved Hongwan Liu's suggestion that we should look at the applicant as an individual and not as a representative of an homogenous group, maybe the Asian American percentages shouldn't be high as people are arguing. I think that this whole discussion is good because college applicants shouldn't be grouped together and affirmative action when applied in the wrong way can be harmful. I however, still believe that checking the Asian American box on my college application form doesn't influence my application as much as everything else that defines me as a person

First:   Being an Asian-American has No impact upon your admission to a college.  It is merely to assist the college in meeting US Federal government reporting requirements.   The government likes to know what is the racial and diversity in the pool of applicants.   Period. What gets you admitted to an elite college is You. Can you attend the college, do the work well and have a High probability of graduating within four years.   That is a Requirement but is not sufficient. Here is the stumbling block for most people, including some current Asian-Americans:   Half of the applicants can meet the above requirement.  Half.   Yet only 6% are admitted.  So, that means of the Half that can do the work, the elite colleges only accept One out of Nine.   That means You have to offer something to the college's undergraduate community.    You have to illustrate that you do one or two or three things (outside the class room) with Passion, Commitment, showing some level of Leadership and that demonstrates that you can budget your time and manage your time. That is It.   It is all about You as a whole person.   Not just you as a potential academic. Half of an undergraduate education is maturing from a raw teenager to an Adult.   For that the college Must believe you will assist your undergraduate  peers in that process.

I've worked in college admissions, for both undergrad and for medical school. I have NEVER heard any discussion of any kind about an applicant's race or ethnic heritage. I know there's been a good deal of hubbub about discrimination against Asian-Americans, but I find it difficult to believe. Given how many parties are involved in the selection processes, it would take an enormous effort to orchestrate discrimination, be successful in the effort, and keep everybody quiet. So I'm not buying. Your GPA, test scores, letters, interviews, extracurriculars and service are what matters, are what is scored and are what will determine if you are accepted. Indicate your ethnicity on the application, or if an option, choose "other," and leave it blank, or if an option, choose "prefer not to answer." It's all pretty moot because if you make it to an interview, your ethnicity will be obvious. I think we should all be racially agnostic. What are you? A student, a son, a brother perhaps, a friend, a scholar maybe, or an athlete? A chess player? A cyclist? What does "Asian" have to do with any of that? This is not to say that you shouldn't be proud of your heritage, but clearly there is much more about you that is more important. On the other hand, you could just claim that while you are of Asian heritage, you "identify" white. Or black. Or whatever works. ;-) Best of luck to you.

You can indicate any race you like.  That data will go into the demographics data that make up the facts and figures information for the schools you apply to.When it comes right down to it,  the admissions office will know what race you are based on your last name,  and in many cases what the names and/or birth places of your parents.  It is, in most cases, difficult to hide being Asian.  I know many mixed race children that "look White" but have Asian fathers - and thus possessed a very Asian last name.  I am certain that they were classified Asian despite leaving the race identification section blank.  These students found that they did not achieve the same admission success rates as their non Asian peers despite having equivalent or superior student profiles.  They did find good schools to attend,  they however did not have as many schools to choose from.You should focus on the rest of the application and understand how to make your application stand out from others that may be grouped with you as your direct competition.  Schools in their quest for diversity will only admit so many of each student 'type' as they have space for.   Your task is to be different and non stereotypical and therefore noticed.This article I share with many people is a little dated but sheds some light on your topic: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/us/14admissions.html?_r=0

Definitely avoid declaring that you are Asian American. Declaring will only hurt you -- or do no harm at best -- so why take the unnecessary risk? Some Quora users explained that affirmative action is fair, perhaps implying that you should play the game to support the system; however,  the net effect on you is that other applicants deserve more, at your expense, due to your race. Don't be persuaded into acting against your own best interests: you should instead act rationally, and maximize your own chances.

In most colleges race isn't a very big factor, so I'd always recommend just being honest and putting in your real race (whether it's asian or white). I remember when I was submitting my application I had an urge to put 'Hawaiian' because I thought colleges would want diversity, but at the end of the day, grades and extracurriculars matter so much more and they wouldn't deny you on the basis of just your race.