美国一些亚裔学生申请入美国优秀高校战略：不填“亚裔”
美国佛罗里达州出生的兰雅.奥姆斯特德(Lanya Olmstead) ,母亲是从台湾移民美国,父亲从挪威移民美国。在自己的种族认知上，她认为自己一半台湾，一半挪威。但申请哈佛时，奥姆斯特德在她的种族一栏只填：”白人”。
“我不想填”亚裔“，” Lanya兰雅.奥姆斯特德说，“因为我妈妈告诉我，在申请入美国优秀高校过程中，有反亚裔的歧视。”
多年来，许多亚裔美国人一直坚信，他们很难进入全国最优秀的高校。
研究表明，满足这些高校的招生标准的亚裔美国人的代表性比例远高于亚裔6％的美国人口比例，并且他们经常需要高于其他族群的申请人测试成绩几百点才有平等的入学机会。批评者说，这些数字，以及一些没有种族歧视招生的常春藤院校亚裔学生比例近乎成倍增长的现象，证明反亚裔的歧视的存在与事实。
批评者认为此类歧视的存在，是在评价亚裔学生时不是把每个亚裔学生作为个人来估评，而是针对其他成千上万有着刻板枯燥的学术机器人形象的优秀亚裔美国人。
现在，一些亚裔学生以否定自己的”亚裔” 身份的方式解决这一歧视问题.
这一决定对于那些只有一方是亚裔父母的亚裔学生，他们的名字不会泻露他们的亚裔特性(指可跟父姓或母姓)，可以比较容易。更难的问题，它提出了：招生困难的背后是什么？ ，究竟是什么---一个亚裔美国人 是一个选择吗？
奥姆斯特德(Lanya Olmstead) 是哈佛大学的新生和HAPA(半亚洲人协会)的成员。在高中，她有一个完美的4.0GPA，并有她称之为“相当低” 的SAT 2150 (满分2400)。
学院申请要求家长信息，奥姆斯特德知道，招生人员可以找出学生的种族背景。在她自己的学院申请上她也写的“多种族”一词。
尽管如此，她会提醒只有一方是亚裔父母的亚裔学生(在种族一栏):“最好填任何其他不是亚裔的种族。”
奥姆斯特德说：“虽不是一概而论，但很多亚裔学生，他们有完美的SAT，完美的GPA平均成绩完善，... ... 却很难让他们都入学，”。
阿玛利亚.Halikias是一个耶鲁大学的新生，她的母亲是在美国出生的中国移民，她的父亲是希腊移民。阿玛利亚在她的种族一栏只填：白人。
Halikias说：“我作为分数比较强的申请人，我不想被划进刻板印象的亚裔学生那一群人中，”。 “我不想因为是14亿亚裔申请人之一而被踢出局。”
她的中国母亲是“非常鼓励” 她的这一决定(阿玛利亚在她的种族一栏只填：白人). Halikias说，即使她重视维护他们的中国传统文化价值。
Halikias说。“亚裔美国人”这一种族不仅仅是神秘组合比例数字，我认为是一个选择(choice)，”
但是，出生在韩国的亚裔哈佛大一学生JODI Balfe觉得不填”亚裔“不对劲，JODI Balfe在3岁时来与她的韩国母亲到这里(她有白人父亲)。她在填写入学申请时没听从她的高中辅导老师，和朋友的”只填：白人”的意见(。
Balfe说：“我对试图隐藏我的种族背景的另一半的想法感到非常不舒服”。 “我的种族背景是影响我作为一个人成长的一个重大因素，我感觉(试图隐藏我的种族背景)就像出卖我的灵魂,出卖太多太多!!!”
Balfe说:“我认为(因隐藏我的种族背景) 而被录取不值得，这将是像我只有一半被录取一样!”
然而，其他学生并没有觉得他们的亚裔身份与他们对不公正的反应之间的有很强冲突。
”Halikias说： “如果你知道你会受到歧视，就绝对有理由不亚裔一栏，。
来自亚洲国家的移民被严格限制，直到在1965年改变法律。当大门终于打开了，许多亚洲移民受过良好教育，吃尽千辛万苦争取更多的机会为他们的家庭，并决心抓住通过努力和教育的美国梦。
这些移民和他们的后代，往往要求孩子尽最大努力工作以取的成就。尊重家长在亚洲文化中是最重要的方面，所以许多孩子服从家长 ----并出类拔粹。
虎妈蔡美在她最近的畅销书<<妈虎战歌>> 中半开玩笑地写道，“中国的父母可以命令自己的孩子取得全A，西方父母只能要求孩子尽力”，
中国父母可以说，“你偷懒，你所有的同学都走在前面的你”，“蔡写道。 “与此相反，西方父母还要与自己对成就的有关认知斗争，并尝试说服自己，他们对他们的孩子成为什么什并没有失望”
当然，并非所有亚裔美国人适合这种刻板印象。他们并不总是听话获得最高分的人。一些拥抱美国文化而不是亚洲文化。她们的经济地位，祖先的国家和习俗各不相同，他们的祖先可能富裕也可能贫穷。
但比较一般的美国社会，亚裔美国人更加重视通过更强的学业准备进入为数不多的好学校.
耶鲁大学二年级学生涛涛.霍姆斯----TaoTao Holmes(她有一个中国出生的母亲和白人父亲)说：“整个虎妈妈的形象是有其根源的”。在她的申请中她没有填”亚裔“.
“我的数学成绩还没高到我可以填自己是亚裔的水平，”她说。 ：“我是对自己开玩笑说(但有底层的情绪)，如果我一直强调自己是亚裔，我会在刻板亚裔为主的科目上（如他人预期的）出类拔粹。”
涛涛.霍姆斯“说：” 我妈妈对我(比我的朋友)是绝对不同的标准。她看甚至许多其他非亚裔移民的父母同样严格的标准。
霍姆斯认为美国父母的孩子普遍娇生惯养，比较懒惰？ “这基本上就是我想说的。”
亚裔学生比其他任何种族有较高的SAT平均分数--包括白人。一个由普林斯顿大学的社会学家托马斯.Espenshade关于1997年申请顶级高校学生的研究(那时的最高SAT分数为1600今天是2400）。 Espenshade发现，亚裔美国人需要一个1550 SAT才有一平等的机会进入精英学院(一个白人学生只需1410或黑人学生只需1100)。
在招生过程中不问种族的顶尖学校中，亚裔学生所占比例非常高。加利福尼亚技术学院，一所私立学校，招生选择不考虑种族，约三分之一(33%)的亚裔。 （13％的加州居 民是亚裔），加州大学伯克利分校，因加州法律禁止在招生过程中有种族因素考虑，亚裔学生所占比例从反种族法律获得通过前的20％到目前超过40％.
俄勒冈大学的物理学教授 史蒂芬.许(Hsu) 对目前的招生政策的强烈批评，史蒂芬.许说，有明确的统计数据表明招生政策存在种族歧视。
他说：“招生政策中种族歧视是如何发生的关系很微妙，” 这里有各种招生人员之间，为自己喜爱的候选人交易等因素，。
此外，“当亚裔成为校园里最大的群体时，我可以很容易想象学校筹款人会说，”这与我们的校友(捐款人)不和谐“，”许说: 当注意到大多数常春藤盟校有大致相同的百分比亚裔时，我想知道这个亚裔百分比是否就是 “种族多元化”仍然有效情况下最高百分比, 而不会出现黄种人不堪重负的情况”
耶鲁大学，哈佛大学，普林斯顿大学和宾夕法尼亚大学招生人员谢决了对此调查事的采访。
卡拉.米勒(Kara Miller) 曾在耶鲁大学招生办公室帮助审查阅读学生申请，并参加作出录取决定的会议。她说，她常常觉得耶鲁大学对亚洲人实施以更高的标准。
米勒(现任美国马萨诸塞州达特茅斯大学University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth英语教授) 说: “亚裔的孩子们知道你在学校的SAT，他们需要给它加50或100要求标准，如果你是亚裔，这就是你必需要的”.
那些非常挑剔性学院使用更比SAT分数和等级更高的标准以评估申请人。其他重要因素包括课外活动，社区服务，领导才能，成熟，在学习中参与，克服逆境….。
有时招生有时偏好给校友的孩子，富人和名人，这是一个压倒性的白人组群。运动员招收同样获得优惠。由于上面的非常挑剔性高校认为--对于一个世界一流的教育机构,多样性是至关重要的,，非洲裔美国人，拉美裔，印第安人和夏威夷/太平洋岛民尽管比其他申请人的得分较低也有可能获得录取。
罗西塔(Rosita Fernandez-Rojo 前大学招生人员，现任纽约市Rye Country Day School升学辅导主任) 说：”像耶鲁大学这类大学,合格的亚裔和白人特优生申请人可以把其大一班填满两遍都不止”.
她说:”申请人不是按资格考试排名结果通过招生资格审查，招生资格审查是一个选择过程。”
她接着说，”人们总是在寻找他们没有获得录取的原因，。 “你不能总是知道这些原因是什么，有时在招生过程中，他们说，'那小子有什么错，我们只是没有房间。”
最终结果--名牌大学常常会没有成绩优异亚裔学生的位置。
着也是为什么哈佛大一学生海蒂Heather Pickerell(在香港出生,台湾的母亲和美国父亲)在她的大学申请中拒绝填族裔一栏的原因之一。
她说: “我想，拒绝填族裔一栏可能会帮助我得到我被录取的机会，但我同时想，如果哈佛因我在申请中拒填族裔一栏而拒我于校门之外，那么也许我不应该去哈佛。”
她认为种族群体之间的画线是不同形式的种族主义， - 她说她的民族认同取决于在哪个国家(不在种族群体)。
她说:“在美国，我被确定为亚裔，实际上是在亚裔家庭长大，” “但是，当我回到香港，我觉得我更多的是美国人，因为每个人有比我更亚洲(裔)”.
涛涛.霍姆斯TaoTao Holmes(耶鲁大学大二学生,中国出生的母亲)，在自己亚裔认同问题上也有疑问----“这根本不对劲!!”
她说，“我觉得自己像一个美国人... ...在美国长大的亚洲人。”
苏珊娜Koetter(耶鲁大学的大三学生，父亲是美国人母亲是韩国人)，是坚定地在申请中确定对她的亚洲一面。但她称自己是“不完全亚裔美国人，我混合亚裔美国人，当我去韩国时,我更象很招摇的(美国)白人”.
然而，问她是否会考虑种族一栏为留空时，她说：“这会搞得很乱，我不是白人!!”
嘉思敏.庄(耶鲁大学的大三学生，其父母都出生在台湾) 说:“身份是可塑性很大，”
她的大学申请种族一栏为留空，尽管她的姓已告诉别人她的族裔而且，她的她的申请文章（essay ）是有关亚裔美国人的身份。
嘉思敏.庄说: “ 回头看，我不同意我所做的，对我来说这更像是一个象征性的反抗行动，反抗对亚裔美国人申请人要求更高的标准。”
嘉思敏.庄说:“对于招生委员会,一个人的种族没法自动告诉你他们是什么样的人，或代表他们是谁，” “种族本身是极其危险的。”
俄勒冈大学的物理学教授 史蒂芬.许说:”如果目前的招生政策继续下去，亚裔学生将更多地回避种族确认问题，学校应作出反应!”
“他们(亚裔学生)将不得不决定：一个半亚裔的学生，我不认为他们真的知道那是什么”
根据学校的网站,在耶鲁大学目前大一有将近26000名学生入校申请, 种族划线已模糊
约1300名学生被录取. 其中20％在入校申请中确认自己为亚裔美国人，新生的15％确认自己为两个或两个以上的种族。
10%的耶鲁大学的新生类在种族选项上留空(不填自己的种族)。
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杰西.华盛顿,美联社种族和民族报道
Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'
Lanya Olmstead was born in Florida to a mother who immigrated from Taiwan and an American father of Norwegian ancestry. Ethnically, she considers herself half Taiwanese and half Norwegian. But when applying to Harvard, Olmstead checked only one box for her race: white.
"I didn't want to put 'Asian' down," Olmstead says, "because my mom told me there's discrimination against Asians in the application process."
For years, many Asian-Americans have been convinced that it's harder for them to gain admission to the nation's top colleges.
Studies show that Asian-Americans meet these colleges' admissions standards far out of proportion to their 6 percent representation in the U.S. population, and that they often need test scores hundreds of points higher than applicants from other ethnic groups to have an equal chance of admission. Critics say these numbers, along with the fact that some top colleges with race-blind admissions have double the Asian percentage of Ivy League schools, prove the existence of discrimination.
The way it works, the critics believe, is that Asian-Americans are evaluated not as individuals, but against the thousands of other ultra-achieving Asians who are stereotyped as boring academic robots.
Now, an unknown number of students are responding to this concern by declining to identify themselves as Asian on their applications.
For those with only one Asian parent, whose names don't give away their heritage, that decision can be relatively easy. Harder are the questions that it raises: What's behind the admissions difficulties? What, exactly, is an Asian-American — and is being one a choice?
Olmstead is a freshman at Harvard and a member of HAPA, the Half-Asian People's Association. In high school she had a perfect 4.0 grade-point average and scored 2150 out of a possible 2400 on the SAT, which she calls "pretty low."
College applications ask for parent information, so Olmstead knows that admissions officers could figure out a student's background that way. She did write in the word "multiracial" on her own application.
Still, she would advise students with one Asian parent to "check whatever race is not Asian."
"Not to really generalize, but a lot of Asians, they have perfect SATs, perfect GPAs, ... so it's hard to let them all in," Olmstead says.
Amalia Halikias is a Yale freshman whose mother was born in America to Chinese immigrants; her father is a Greek immigrant. She also checked only the "white" box on her application.
"As someone who was applying with relatively strong scores, I didn't want to be grouped into that stereotype," Halikias says. "I didn't want to be written off as one of the 1.4 billion Asians that were applying."
Her mother was "extremely encouraging" of that decision, Halikias says, even though she places a high value on preserving their Chinese heritage.
"Asian-American is more a scale or a gradient,
than a discrete combination . I think it's a choice," Halikias says.
But leaving the Asian box blank felt wrong to Jodi Balfe, a Harvard freshman who was born in Korea and came here at age 3 with her Korean mother and white American father. She checked the box against the advice of her high school guidance counselor, teachers and friends.
"I felt very uncomfortable with the idea of trying to hide half of my ethnic background," Balfe says. "It's been a major influence on how I developed as a person. It felt like selling out, like selling too much of my soul."
"I thought admission wouldn't be worth it. It would be like only half of me was accepted."
Other students, however, feel no conflict between a strong Asian identity and their response to what they believe is injustice.
"If you know you're going to be discriminated against, it's absolutely justifiable to not check the Asian box," says Halikias.
Immigration from Asian countries was heavily restricted until laws were changed in 1965. When the gates finally opened, many Asian arrivals were well-educated, endured hardships to secure more opportunities for their families, and were determined to seize the American dream through effort and education.
These immigrants, and their descendants, often demanded that children work as hard as humanly possible to achieve. Parental respect is paramount in Asian culture, so many children have obeyed — and excelled.
"Chinese parents can order their kids to get straight As. Western parents can only ask their kids to try their best," wrote Amy Chua, only ironically or facetiously.
, in her recent best-selling book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother."
"Chinese parents can say, 'You're lazy. All your classmates are getting ahead of you,'" Chua wrote. "By contrast, Western parents have to struggle with their own conflicted feelings about achievement, and try to persuade themselves that they're not disappointed about how their kids turned out."
Of course, not all Asian-Americans fit this stereotype. They are not always obedient hard workers who get top marks. Some embrace American rather than Asian culture. Their economic status, ancestral countries and customs vary, and their forebears may have been rich or poor.
But compared with American society in general, Asian-Americans have developed a much stronger emphasis on intense academic preparation as a path to a handful of the very best schools.
"The whole Tiger Mom stereotype is grounded in truth," says Tao Tao Holmes, a Yale sophomore with a Chinese-born mother and white American father. She did not check "Asian" on her application.
"My math scores aren't high enough for the Asian box," she says. "I say it jokingly, but there is the underlying sentiment of, if I had emphasized myself as Asian, I would have (been expected to) excel more in stereotypically Asian-dominated subjects."
"I was definitely held to a different standard (by my mom), and to different standards than my friends," Holmes says. She sees the same rigorous academic focus among many other students with immigrant parents, even non-Asian ones.
Does Holmes think children of American parents are generally spoiled and lazy by comparison? "That's essentially what I'm trying to say."
Asian students have higher average SAT scores than any other group, including whites. A study by Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade examined applicants to top colleges from 1997, when the maximum SAT score was 1600 (today it's 2400). Espenshade found that Asian-Americans needed a 1550 SAT to have an equal chance of getting into an elite college as white students with a 1410 or black students with an 1100.
Top schools that don't ask about race in admissions process have very high percentages of Asian students. The California Institute of Technology, a private school that chooses not to consider race, is about one-third Asian. (Thirteen percent of California residents have Asian heritage.) The University of California-Berkeley, which is forbidden by state law to consider race in admissions, is more than 40 percent Asian — up from about 20 percent before the law was passed.
Steven Hsu, a physics professor at the University of Oregon and a vocal critic of current admissions policies, says there is a clear statistical case that discrimination exists.
"The actual dynamics of how it happens are really quite subtle," he says, mentioning factors like horse-trading among admissions officers for their favorite candidates.
Also, "when Asians are the largest group on campus, I can easily imagine a fund-raiser saying, 'This is jarring to our alumni,'" Hsu says. Noting that most Ivy League schools have roughly the same percentage of Asians, he wonders if "that's the maximum number where diversity is still good, and it's not, 'we're being overwhelmed by the yellow horde.'"
Yale, Harvard, Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania declined to make admissions officers available for interviews for this story.
Kara Miller helped review applications for Yale as an admissions office reader, and participated in meetings where admissions decisions were made. She says it often felt like Asians were held to a higher standard.
"Asian kids know that when you look at the average SAT for the school, they need to add 50 or 100 to it. If you're Asian, that's what you'll need to get in," says Miller, now an English professor at the .
Highly selective colleges do use much more than SAT scores and grades to evaluate applicants. Other important factors include extracurricular activities, community service, leadership, maturity, engagement in learning, and overcoming adversity.
Admissions preferences are sometimes given to the children of alumni, the wealthy and celebrities, which is an overwhelmingly white group. Recruited athletes get breaks. Since the top colleges say diversity is crucial to a world-class education, African-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders also may get in despite lower scores than other applicants.
A college like Yale "could fill their entire freshman class twice over with qualified Asian students or white students or valedictorians," says Rosita Fernandez-Rojo, a former college admissions officer who is now director of college counseling at Rye Country Day School outside of New York City.
But applicants are not ranked by results of a qualifications test, she says — "it's a selection process."
"People are always looking for reasons they didn't get in," she continues. "You can't always know what those reasons are. Sometimes during the admissions process they say, 'There's nothing wrong with that kid. We just don't have room.'"
In the end, elite colleges often don't have room for Asian students with outstanding scores and grades.
That's one reason why Harvard freshman Heather Pickerell, born in Hong Kong to a Taiwanese mother and American father, refused to check any race box on her application.
"I figured it might help my chances of getting in," she says. "But I figured if Harvard wouldn't take me for refusing to list my ethnicity, then maybe I shouldn't go there."
She considers drawing lines between different ethnic groups a form of racism — and says her ethnic identity depends on where she is.
"In America, I identify more as Asian, having grown up there, and actually being Asian, and having grown up in an Asian family," she says. "But when I'm back in Hong Kong I feel more American, because everyone there is more Asian than I am."
Holmes, the Yale sophomore with the Chinese-born mother, also has problems fitting herself into the Asian box — "it doesn't make sense to me."
"I feel like an American," she says, "...an Asian person who grew up in America."
Susanna Koetter, a Yale junior with an American father and Korean mother, was adamant about identifying her Asian side on her application. Yet she calls herself "not fully Asian-American. I'm mixed Asian-American. When I go to Korea, I'm like, blatantly white."
And yet, asked whether she would have considered leaving the Asian box blank, she says: "That would be messed up. I'm not white."
"Identity is very malleable," says Jasmine Zhuang, a Yale junior whose parents were both born in Taiwan.
She didn't check the box, even though her last name is a giveaway and her essay was about Asian-American identity.
"Looking back I don't agree with what I did," Zhuang says. "It was more like a symbolic action for me, to rebel against the higher standard placed on Asian-American applicants."
"There's no way someone's race can automatically tell you something about them, or represent who they are to an admissions committee," Zhuang says. "Using race by itself is extremely dangerous."
Hsu, the physics professor, says that if the current admissions policies continue, it will become more common for Asian students to avoid identifying themselves as such, and schools will have to react.
"They'll have to decide: A half-Asian kid, what is that? I don't think they really know."
The lines are already blurred at Yale, where almost 26,000 students applied for the current freshman class, according to the school's web site.
About 1,300 students were admitted. Twenty percent of them marked the Asian-American box on their applications; 15 percent of freshmen marked two or more ethnicities.
Ten percent of Yale's freshmen class did not check a single box.
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Jesse Washington covers race and ethnicity for The Associated Press. He is
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