{"id":14175,"date":"2011-06-14T12:31:02","date_gmt":"2011-06-14T12:31:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=14175"},"modified":"2011-06-15T23:38:52","modified_gmt":"2011-06-15T23:38:52","slug":"on-college-forms-a-question-of-race-or-races-can-perplex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=14175","title":{"rendered":"On College Forms, a Question of Race, or Races, Can Perplex"},"content":{"rendered":"

On College Forms, a Question of Race, or Races, Can Perplex<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a>
\n2011-06-13<\/p>\n

Susan Saulny<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jacques Steinberg<\/strong><\/p>\n

HOUSTON<\/a> \u2014 At the beginning of the college application season last fall, Natasha Scott, a high school senior of mixed racial heritage in Beltsville, Md.<\/a>, vented about a personal dilemma on College Confidential, the go-to electronic bulletin board for anonymous conversation about admissions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just realized that my race is something I have to think about,\u201d she wrote, describing herself as having an Asian mother and a black father. \u201cIt pains me to say this, but putting down black might help my admissions chances and putting down Asian might hurt it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother urges me to put down black to use AA\u201d \u2014 African-American \u2014 \u201cto get in to the colleges I\u2019m applying to,\u201d added Ms. Scott, who identified herself on the site as Clearbrooke. \u201cI sort of want to do this but I\u2019m wondering if this is morally right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within minutes, a commenter had responded, \u201cYou\u2019re black. You should own it.\u201d Someone else agreed, \u201cPut black!!!!!!!! Listen to your mom.\u201d<\/p>\n

No one advised marking Asian alone. But one commenter weighed in with advice that could just as well have come from any college across the country: \u201cYou can put both. You can put one. You\u2019re not dishonest either way. Just put how you feel.\u201d…<\/p>\n

…Some scholars worry that the growth in multiracial applicants could further erode the original intent of affirmative action, which is to help disadvantaged minorities. For example, families with one black parent and one white parent are on average more affluent than families with two black parents. When choosing between two such applicants, some universities might lean toward the multiracial student because he will need less financial aid while still counting toward affirmative-action goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do we include multiracials in our view of an egalitarian society and not do it in a way that disadvantages other groups?\u201d said Ulli K. Ryder<\/a>, visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America<\/a> at Brown University…<\/p>\n

A Growing Category<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rice University<\/a> in Houston might, given its early history, seem an unlikely place to find admissions officers wrestling with questions of race as they size up their applicants. A private and highly selective institution, it was founded in the early 1900s by a wealthy Houston businessman as an exclusively white institution, a designation it maintained through the late 1960s.<\/p>\n

And yet these days, white students are now only 43 percent of the student body at Rice, where an applicant\u2019s racial identification can become an admissions game changer. This can be especially true during the \u201ccommittee round\u201d in early spring, when only a few dozen slots might remain for a freshman class expected to number about 1,000.<\/p>\n

At that stage, a core group of five to seven bleary-eyed admissions officers will convene for debate around a rectangular laminate table strewn with coffee cups and half-eaten doughnuts as the applications of those students still under consideration are projected onto a 60-inch plasma TV screen.<\/p>\n

For most of the nearly 14,000 who applied this year, the final decision \u2014 admit or deny \u2014 was a relatively straightforward one resolved early on, based on the admissions officers\u2019 sampling of factors like test scores, grades, extracurricular activities and recommendations.<\/p>\n

But there are several thousand applicants whose fate might still be in limbo by the committee round because their qualifications can seem fairly indistinguishable from one another. This is when an applicant\u2019s race \u2014 or races \u2014 might tip the balance.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom an academic standpoint, the qualifying records, the test scores, how many AP courses, they may all look alike,\u201d said Chris Mu\u00f1oz<\/a>, vice president for enrollment at Rice since 2006. \u201cThat\u2019s when we might go and say, \u2018This kid has a Spanish surname. Let\u2019s see what he wrote about.\u2019 Right or wrong, it can make a difference.\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On College Forms, a Question of Race, or Races, Can Perplex The New York Times 2011-06-13 Susan Saulny Jacques Steinberg HOUSTON \u2014 At the beginning of the college application season last fall, Natasha Scott, a high school senior of mixed racial heritage in Beltsville, Md., vented about a personal dilemma on College Confidential, the go-to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2895,125,6,20],"tags":[6534,6533,6532,4216,2327,3681,6543,3682],"class_list":["post-14175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-campus-life","category-identitydevelopment","category-new-media","category-usa","tag-chris-munoz","tag-jacques-steinberg","tag-race-remixed","tag-susan-saulny","tag-the-new-york-times","tag-ulli-k-ryder","tag-ulli-kira-ryder","tag-ulli-ryder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}