Checking Those Boxes

Kids are taking off for college in a few short months. Not ours, not for a long while. But I have heard a lot of talk, from fellow parents, about the trials of the college admissions process. The anxieties shared by students and parents alike, about GPAs, SATs, APs, along with proper documentation of volunteer work hours, achievements in extracurricular activities, trophies and scholarships, awards and citations. How to prepare and produce the perfect admissions essay. What to share, and what to omit.

The New York Times ran a Race Remixed piece last week: “On College Forms, a Question Of Race, or Races, Can Perplex.”

Yes, I know.

All those beleaguered multicultural kids applying to colleges have to formally qualify their racial identities, in the throes of the most pressurized experience of their young lives. They are craving approval, marketing their own self-worth, trying to stand out in a faceless crowd. Some may deliberately manipulate the facts of their genealogy in order to tip the Affirmative Action scales in their favor. The article says it all – so I’ll share my own dated experience.

I applied to colleges in 1985. I remember toiling over applications at my mother’s cluttered desk, in her private office at the Fashion Institute of Technology. She was the Chairperson of the Science and Math Department, with a state-of-the-art IBM Selectric typewriter available for my use. The “delete” key never fully erased errant letters, so I took pains to compose and correct my essays by hand, on paper with pen, before sliding the triplicate forms behind the rotor clamp. Checking boxes was a science in itself, lining each one up so that the striker for Capital X would land with pinpoint precision. Neatness could be a deciding factor in the admissions ordeal.

Each application posed the Race question. Some forms wanted one box checked. Others directed to check all that applied. My targets were: New York University; Wesleyan University; Sarah Lawrence College; SUNY Purchase. In cases where I had to be uni-racial, I chose black. My mother instructed me to do so. And I would have, even without her guidance. Not because I was trying to “get over”, but because black was my identity. If I had to choose a singular identity now, I would still pick black. Or “Other”, if given the option. But here we are, in 2011, and the statisticians have finally figured out to include “Multiracial” in the list. And isn’t it a beautiful thing that we each get to decide for ourselves?

According to the Times article, and the latest census data, vast numbers of multiracial people are living in our midst. It looks like my daughters will be the beneficiaries of this browning trend, and will never have to pick one race label for themselves. If they had to make a percentage-based statement, it would have to be white. But I trust they will identify as multiracial. It should be easy for them.

I am so grateful for that little line of text, “Check All That Apply”.