Article posted: 12/4/2011 6:00 AM

Some Asians’ college strategy: Don’t check ‘Asian’

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Harvard University student Heather Pickerell stands in front of an entrance to the school’s quad as passers-by stream by, in Cambridge, Mass. Pickerell, born in Hong Kong to a Taiwanese mother and American father, refused to check any race box on her Harvard 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.”

Associated Press

Harvard University student Lanya Olmstead stands in front of an entrance to the school’s quad as passers-by stream by, in Cambridge, Mass. Ethnically, she considers herself half Taiwanese and half Norwegian. But when applying to Harvard, Olmstead checked only one box for her race: white.

Associated Press

Yale sophomore Tao Tao Holmes poses for a photograph on campus at Yale University in New Haven, Conn. Holmes, a Yale sophomore with a Chinese-born mother and white American father, did not check ìAsianî on her Yale application.

Associated Press

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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.

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