Can my son omit all parent information from his application?

[Anonymous]

We were full pay and completed the FAFSA as it was recommended to be able to demonstrate to the college financial department that we could pay the bill

Holy what? Did you choose to do this to show full pay or were you asked to fill it out to prove that you can full pay?

[Anonymous]

Use the college's Net Price Calculator to make sure you wouldn't be eligible for financial aid. If you are prepared to full pay, then there is no need to file FAFSA. (Yes, a poster will come along and spout about the need to file FAFSA for merit, but the specific colleges and scholarships that require FAFSA are tiny in number, so tiny that posters have difficulty identifying such situations. Check the college's website and/or contact the admission/scholarship offices if you can't figure that part out.)

AOs don't look at the FAFSA anyway and even if they did, they are not holding Asian stepparent against the applicant. They are not looking beyond the App race box checked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: They don’t ask the parents race. Only the kids. My daughter is adopted and has a different race and nationality than I have.

Adopted person here. Sorry, I just have to say that nationality means your citizenship, not your ethnicity or race. So your daughter is a different race than you, but most likely, is American, which means her nationality is American just like yours. Now if your daughter isn't actually an American citizen, then I retract my post.

[Anonymous]

There are questions that would imply parents' race (such as if they went to university in an Asian country).

If it were me, though, I'd not list stepmother as mother. I'd list real mother, and then list 'deceased' if that is correct, or something else to explain situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: They don’t ask the parents race. Only the kids. My daughter is adopted and has a different race and nationality than I have.

I don't know why it's hard to understand that the race is obvious from the parent's name.

It’s hard to understand because there are white women married to guys whose last name is Wu and they are still white. This remains true even when they divorce and keep the last name to conform with their kids’ and even remarry.

In short, the world—and college admissions offices—are filled with people who understand that name and race do not inevitably go together in the way you suggest.

Cool your jets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What if a white couple adopted a Chinese child at birth? Does that child face tougher admissions criteria like other Asians do?

That's pretty much why I started this thread. It's completely unclear and I hoped someone would have information. I'm pretty sure an admissions officer will glance casually at the application (what do they give, 1.5 minutes per application?), see "chinese mom name" and then say "oh, 1450 SAT, that's not that good... plus this kid has a bad personality." BAM. Instead of getting much advice or help, I got a bunch of replies, "U CONFUSED, APP NO ASK FOR PARENT RACE." Gosh, THANKS!!

You are getting these replies because the notion that admissions officers will cross reference your wife's "Asian sounding" name on the FAFSA with the student's application and make judgements accordingly. This seems like quite a stretch. Schools that have a high volume of applications have automated systems for displaying only relevant data to admissions folks (especially at need-blind schools), so I think it's extremely unlikely that any admissions person will be searching out parent names on the FAFSA to make guesses about kids' ethnicities. In fact, a well designed system will specifically prevent that kind of thing.

Your question makes you seem kind of obsessed with race in a really off-putting way.