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Many white students lied about their race to improve chances of admission

90 points by chuckee 5y ago

millzlane 5y ago
I am not white and I have lied on applications and government forms. I'm mixed. If the document doesn't cover my appropriate race I always put white. If I'm feeling really silly I will bubble in both black and white. I hate that in my court records it says black. Because I'm not black or white.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  If I'm feeling really silly That not silly-- Many forms of Federal compliance reporting guidelines require collection of the data to allow multiple selections so a person can say "both" (or more). Black & White are legitimate combinations that I see often. Though depending on how far back you go, this methodology wasn't always the case. And if it isn't for federal purposes, it doesn't apply, though many organizations may still use the federal format.
draw_down 5y ago
> 3/4 of people who faked being a racial minority on their applications were accepted by the colleges to which they lied Then I guess we better get used to it.
Kye 5y ago
Did it have an effect, though? It says 75% who lied got in, but what are the rates for people who were honest? How do rates vary by honest applicants across demographics? Of course, the answer is in the methodology: >> "All data found within this report derives from a survey commissioned by Intelligent.com and conducted online by survey platform Pollfish. In total, 1,250 white Americans were surveyed. To qualify for the survey, each respondent had to have previously applied to a college or university in the U.S. Appropriate respondents were found via a screening question." So this doesn't tell us anything without further study.
- gus_massa 5y ago
  I agree. Part of the problem is how they measure success. Most people apply to a lot of universities, so it's possible that each university accept only a tiny part of the application, but most people is accepted at least by one of them.
- bluecalm 5y ago
  Knowing that wouldn't help you. Even if the admission rates are the same there might be (and probably is) a selection bias - the more unsure you are about your chances of getting in the more incentive you have to lie to improve your chances.
- deleted 5y ago
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alephnan 5y ago
When they lie, do they say they are a non-white model minority ?
- hasmolo 5y ago
  these details are in the text and an info-graphic in the article itself. that said, it's mostly 'safe' minorities, with few claiming to be Black or other 'hard to pass' minorities.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  They say they self-identify as a minority, often due to sociocultural reasons.
  - toyg 5y ago
    The worship of self-identification is effectively gutting words of any meaning.
    - matheusmoreira 5y ago
      Yup. They invented this "social construct" concept. This is obviously vulnerable to abuse. They have no choice but to accept it now. Either they accept it or they will be forced to admit that it is not a social construct.
  - gambiting 5y ago
    Yep, you can be white and still a part of minority(disabled, immigrant, based on religion etc...)
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      Also, white hispanic isn’t uncommon at all.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  From the article, seems like Native American is common. That kind of makes sense for the USA, as a lot of us have heard of a great great grand daddy who was from some tribe or another, but the stories turn out to either be anecdotal (not verifiable) or so diluted that it feels wrong to claim the connection. Elizabeth Warren got into a bit of trouble on this. It isn’t an uncommon problem, and I can see people admitting to lying here (even if they think there is a bit of truth to the claim).
dabbledash 5y ago
People pretend not to be white all the time to garner advantage in white supremacists societies… right? I’m sure it happened all the time in the Jim Crow south. ETA: I don’t think we live in a white-supremacist or anti-white culture. I think people talk about these things in absurdly reductionist ways and am poking fun at that.
- amcoastal 5y ago
  Nice point. You miss the obvious fact that these people are lying on an application about being nonwhite. I'm sure they don't walk down the street daily pretending to be non-white, nor would they lie about their race during a traffic stop. So congratulations, you found one small part of life where being nonwhite has an advantage. You're so unwoke.
  - the_af 5y ago
    The comment you're replying to is sarcastic. It is actually saying being not white has more downsides than upsides.
    - amcoastal 5y ago
      I'll disagree until the OP claims sarcasm. The comment easily reads as white grievance about how our society is "obviously not white supremacist" because "why would people lie about being white in a white supremacist country"? To which I replied the obvious answer to such a dumb conjecture. Unfortunately the title has drawn in many comments exactly like this, its sad people can't think 2 inches from their face. I'll take the downvotes from cranky white people with pride.
    - ithkuil 5y ago
      The comment is indeed sarcastic. It seems to imply that the US is not a white supremacist society because otherwise why would white people pretend to not be white? During a period of racial segregation like the one cited in the comment, people were not pretending to be non-white (the comment used sarcasm again stating "I'm sure that it happened all the time"). So the point of that comment wasn't that being non-white has more downsides than upsides, but rather that people describing the USA as a country where white supremacy is the dominant ideology are exaggerating.
thejackgoode 5y ago
It's ironic how "positive discrimination" produces incentives that make life of minorities worse
- hasmolo 5y ago
  i mean i feel like white dudes claiming to be a minority to poison the whole point of attempting to boost non-white representation is probably not a good example of 'positive discrimination'. a whole bunch of people destroying the purpose of attempted representation increases for minorities, while claiming it doesn't work because they broke it, is so comically disingenuous I have to assume you're doing it to harm us all.
  - draw_down 5y ago
    Jumping to white “dudes” is funny. In America at least, the most famous examples of someone doing this are a white woman politician who blatantly lied about being Native American/First Nations, and a white woman who pretended to be black in order to run a local chapter of the NAACP.
  - thejackgoode 5y ago
    Feels like you did not have a chance to read my comment because of the blur of fingerpointing too fast. When any system gives preference to an identity it's expected behavior to attempt to pass as a carrier of said identity. It does not matter what the identity is.
    - hasmolo 5y ago
      i can understand how you'd feel that way. i'm addressing this: > It's ironic how "positive discrimination" produces incentives that make life of minorities worse and now you're saying: > When any system gives preference to an identity it's expected behavior to attempt to pass as a carrier of said identity. It does not matter what the identity is. this is where we disagree, you are implying that people using a lie about race is 'harming' minorities here, but it isn't. some people are taking advantage of it, but the hyper majority aren't. i think our core difference is this: i don't think the people here abusing the system are actually having a meaningful impact or harm on those that this program actually helps. i think that acting like that's the case to remove this condition is the more long term harmful effect. in the end we disagree on the impact of the people abusing this system, and i don't imagine we will be able to agree on this, but i appreciate the perspective you've given me.
Bostonian 5y ago
Such lying would not make a difference if college admissions did not discriminate on the basis of race. It's interesting that 48% of white boys vs. 16% of white girls admit to lying about race.
- Craighead 5y ago
  "Discriminate" is an interesting word choice. Why that word?
gvv 5y ago
> being white is a privilege > you need to lie that you're not white to gain privilege Pick one
- endisneigh 5y ago
  These aren't really contradictory statements, tho.
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  being white is generally a huge privilege but in some contexts being not white is advantageous.
- pandatigox 5y ago
  It's a privilege to gain the benefits of an ethnicity while not having to suffer the disadvantages associated with that ethnicity.
- chuckee 5y ago
  While I believe white privilege is overstated, the sibling comment is correct that these are not mutually exclusive. https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/05/23/can-things-be-both-popular-and-silenced/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/05/23/can-things-be-both-pop... makes an analogous point.
- ketzu 5y ago
  It seems like not as strong. A more jokish version might be: > Having no kids is a financial advantage > You have to claim kids on your tax form to save more on taxes The two may not be as exclusive as they seem.
- paulcole 5y ago
  2 things can be true at once. It’s doubtless that at a overall societal level white privilege exists in the United States. From the article it also seems that in some isolated situations there are benefits to not being perceived as white.
- Frost1x 5y ago
  I don't think they're mutually exclusive they just apply at different times because we have inconsistent standards. Being white gives you a lot of advantages, but I'd say on occasion (affirmative action, diversity based decisions, etc.) then playing non-white can be advantageous. My underlying concern is that in a highly competitive society where we're so pushed at every corner we look for any advantages we can take to get ahead (reasons people lie about silly things like race/ethnicity), how do we maintain trust and cohesion in our society? At some point, people will lie about anything and everything to get ahead to a point that I no longer believe even the most trivial of statements they claim. At that point, my trust is completely removed. It's already well on its way down to nothing but at least now I can look at motives and question why someone may or may not lie and think about the large obvious factors. At some point, the factors people lie about may become so asinine to get ahead that I have 0 trust in anyone at all anymore. How do you operate in a society where trust is all but completely removed.
hstan4 5y ago
> 48% of people who lied claimed to be Native American Thanks Elizabeth Warren
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grodes 5y ago
Just don't make decisions based on race. That's what nazis did.
- zapdrive 5y ago
  I'm sure you would be called a racist just for saying that. Haha. The irony!
  - 1ibsq 5y ago
    nevertheless I don't think it's clever to completely discard the idea. Giving incentives to underprivileged people is a way to counter steer an unfairness. It has to be a temporary vehicle and not a permanent solution though - that's an important point to accknowledge.
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- laurent92 5y ago
  Tell that to the UN. In June 2021, they encouraged France and Germany to use race statistics to help increase chances for non-Whites. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/16/france-and-germany-urged-to-rethink-reluctance-to-gather-ethnicity-data https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/16/france-and-ger... https://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/l-onu-exhorte-la-france-a-recourir-aux-statistiques-ethniques-pour-lutter-contre-le-racisme-systemique-20210701 https://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/l-onu-exhorte-la-fr...
johan12345 5y ago
Just a question from a non-american. Why is it so important to keep track on which "race" people belong to in America?
- hasmolo 5y ago
  because our national culture indexes people's worth based on race in very structural ways. america's hegemony is based on the entire concept of 'western superiority', and that the core way to boost QOL is to create a subservient class that actually wants to be used.
  - strogonoff 5y ago
    From the outside it seems frustrating that instead of addressing the underlying issue—indexing individual’s worth based on race (or other unalienable characteristics)—the solution is to keep applying the same logic, just assigning different weights to the output. For example, financial aid should not depend on race, but on actual financial situation. If it happens to be generally worse for certain minorities, you’ve achieved your goal—and without using racial discrimination. Judging by one’s appearance seems like the lazy way out.
    - bsanr2 5y ago
      How would you propose to level the entrenched inequities if not by reversing the previously unequal distribution of scarce resources?
      - raxxorrax 5y ago
        If we talk about inequities, why not use economic factors? Get the money from equity holders. Probably from BlackRock in this case, not from WhiteRock.
        bsanr2 5y ago
        Because race was an explicit and continues to be an implicit factor in separating the haves from the have-nots. >Probably from BlackRock in this case, not from WhiteRock. That's cultural appropriation.
gtirloni 5y ago
Textbook case of incentives having unwanted consequences.
quantumfissure 5y ago
I'm white with a "more ethnic sounding" name. I wasn't getting callbacks or interviews by filling out that information on job applications or in Linkedin. Despite having 9+ years in Tech for a major company. The day after I removed my picture off LinkedIn and stopped answering the "race" question on applications, I started getting tons of calls. YMMV, but that was my experience, so I'm not shocked.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  What exactly is an "ethnic sounding" name? Pretty much all the literature out there shows that people with more "white names" get more interviews and have more callbacks. 2008 - https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/35823/1/584702035.pdf https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/35823/1/584702035.pd... 2016 - http://www-2.rotman.utoronto.ca/facbios/file/Whitening%20MS%20R2%20Accepted.pdf http://www-2.rotman.utoronto.ca/facbios/file/Whitening%20MS%... 2017 - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2378023117737193 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23780231177371...
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    Probably a name that was never used by a King of England or found in the New Testament, if the GP is from the US.
  - quantumfissure 5y ago
    My first and last name aren't typical Anglo-Saxon (i.e. John; Mark; Bill; Ken; etc...).
    - endisneigh 5y ago
      So anything that's not Anglo-Saxon is ethnic sounding? What country are you based in?
      - Jensson 5y ago
        > What country are you based in? From context it is USA. Asking job applicants about race is illegal or at least not common in most countries.
endisneigh 5y ago
From the article: white young men report 3X higher numbers than white young women in lying to get an advantage. I wonder why the discrepancy here.
- zapdrive 5y ago
  Because being a woman is already an advantage these days. With woke culture and diversity hiring, women are already given priority. Even the universities are trying to "gender balance" their STEM majors by prioritizing women over men. So I guess that's why women don't have to lie.
- InsomniacL 5y ago
  I imagine it's because of the same reason people lied about their race. Women are considered 'under-represented' in some areas and so are actively sought after, so there is less benefit in lying about belonging to a group they consider 'over-represented'.
NmAmDa 5y ago
I applied for many grad schools and I don't remember having any of the applications gives my race correct. And to be fair the race options in US doesn't work for me in general. I chose white for applications that made the choice mandatory. I don't think this had put me in a disadvantage. I am the only international student who got accepted in the school I accepted and got offers from about 40% of schools I applied. I actually can think that identifying as a white is the advantage. But to be honest I don't think that it matter because in most applications I remember that they say it is just for stats and will not be a factor in admission.
enoch_r 5y ago
This seems incredibly unlikely to be true - if 34% of students lied, and 48% of people who lied claimed to be Native American, then ~17% of college students should be Native American. Which they're not, suggesting that this is probably bullshit. EDIT: Yes, this really seems extremely fishy, see: https://twitter.com/Daniel_Laurison/status/1453026929511055363 https://twitter.com/Daniel_Laurison/status/14530269295110553... > here's a quick reality check that @insidehighered could have done - took me under a minute to find this report. Less than 1% of applicants using the Common App said they were Native American in the 2 states I've looked at so far. > Ok ok, on a bit of further reflection if this (48% of 34% of white applicants say they're native american) were accurate it wouldn't be 17% of all apps, it would be 17% of all apps that SHOULD say white. Which is at least 53% of all apps, probably more. > 0.48×0.34×0.53 = 0.86 = at least 8.6% of all apps should claim to be NA (or 2 or more races). More to the point, if 34% of white applicants are saying they're not white, you'd expect some over-reprentation of "non-white" applicants, which is not what you see. More here, same conclusion: https://twitter.com/JonBoeckenstedt/status/1452864922765783045 https://twitter.com/JonBoeckenstedt/status/14528649227657830...
- robotbikes 5y ago
  All I needed to see was "conducted online by survey platform Pollfish". I don't know much about Pollfish but I am very suspect of online polling due to the challenge of finding representative sample sets.
- chuckee 5y ago
  Thank you for the fast catch. Since it was still within the edit window, I've tagged the story as likely fake.
- newacct583 5y ago
  Yeah, this is straight up journalistic malpractice by Intelligent.com. Publishing facts that are clearly contradicted by more reliable, obviously available facts is going way beyond gutter clickbaitery and veering straight off into propaganda. I look forward to having to correct this misconception in the coming years as it gets repeated ad nauseum by people who "saw it on the internet".
ineedasername 5y ago
I think it's more accurate to say "34% of respondents lied about race. Without more details, I'm skeptical that their methodology, as presented, was very rigorous to be able to extrapolate to the entire population. So this is very suggestive, but I'd like to see a more tightly controlled version conducted.
optimiz3 5y ago
Objectively, one way to protest the use of race in admissions is for everyone to lie making the practice useless. Game theory is strongly in favor of lying. Personally, it always infuriated me when I was applying in the early 2000s that most colleges had a checkbox for "underrepresented" minorities. Don't bother applying if you're not the "right" kind of minority.
- deleted 5y ago
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- cyberbanjo 5y ago
  Seems needlessly dangerous to lie on an application like that, just mark prefer not to answer.
  - ravel-bar-foo 5y ago
    A high school guidance counsellor told our class that race in my jurisdiction was legally a matter of self-identification. The only danger is probably the social shame for being called out.
  - optimiz3 5y ago
    Well in my case I marked it truthfully, but what is an institution going to do? Force genetic testing? Tell someone they aren't "x" enough? What if someone grew up adopted? No way an institution would dare challenge an answer.
    - sethammons 5y ago
      A white south african kid at my high school that graduated a year or two before me (20 years ago) put in for an african american scholarship as he had dual citizenship. Denied because he was white. Feels similar enough and shows someone challenging an answer.
  - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
    Technically they can't force you to do a DNA test. But even if they could, you could do one in advance, and i'm pretty sure, with all the genetic mixing, you'd come to atleast 1% of some minority status and have papers to prove it.
mherdeg 5y ago
I'd like to see the getting into/paying for college trade press cover the modern state of the "surrender custody of your child so they can declare financial independence and qualify for a full tuition waiver based on their near-zero income" strategy (e.g. https://www.propublica.org/article/university-of-illinois-financial-aid-fafsa-parents-guardianship-children-students https://www.propublica.org/article/university-of-illinois-fi...). Is this strategy still viable? I couldn't find any coverage of it with a quick Web search ([site:intelligent.com independent student]). Maybe it's so good that the college-consultant industry is hoping it'll stay under the radar for a few more years?
lordnacho 5y ago
From the outside (Europe) you have to ask yourself why the US even recognizes such a thing as race. To start with, it's hard to define precisely. It also seems to be at odds with the idea of individual responsibility, and individual identity. Just let young people, who have not yet formed their identities, apply. And judge them by individual criteria, not what groups they happen to be part of. There's also a very superficial idea of diversity presented. Is your university really going to be diverse from simply having people with different skin color? Having varying skin tones does not tell you for instance whether all the institution's students are wealthy or poor. Or if they grew up in the same place. Or have the same attitudes, which I suppose is the real diversity that you want to have. As for lying about it, you can't really be surprised. If there's no checking, and people think ticking one box puts them at an advantage, why wouldn't they? Surely many of them have a similar attitude to race as what I'm writing, and why would you set yourself backward unjustly?
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  Yep.. a white person from washington, white person from italy and white person from belarus are more diverse than black, latino, asian and white persons from chicago. But it's $current_year, and race suddenly matters.
  - mk81 5y ago
    It is currentYear and overt racism is fine now as long as the discrimination is directed at white folks (or Asians in an academic context).
  - enumjorge 5y ago
    > But it's $current_year, and race suddenly matters. What is with the terrible discussion happening on this thread? There are black people alive in the US today who in their lifetime could not use the same bathroom or schools as white people. In what world did race not “matter” until now?
    - raxxorrax 5y ago
bsanr2 5y ago
As a black man, I usually decline to put my race on job applications. Even though EEOC information isn't supposed to be used to discriminate against applicants, I don't believe for a second that it isn't. Unfortunately, having attended an HBCU, I don't know how helpful that is. I've seriously considered, recently, marking my race as "white" for future apps. It wouldn't be a complete lie; my great-grandmother was white. However, I keep remembering th anecdotes of black professionals with "white-sounding" names who were welcomed enthusiastically during the phone interview, only to get the cold shoulder when they showed up to the office. In case anyone was keeping track, the ability to get the job you trained in your degree for is more important than getting into your specific desired degree program. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/african-americans-with-college-degrees-are-twice-as-likely-to-be-unemployed-as-other-graduates/430971/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/african...
mc32 5y ago
If Elizabeth Warren could make this fib into a potent political career, why wouldn’t anyone else?
buggythebug 5y ago
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emergie 5y ago
I heard that Slavs are considered PoC in the USA. You can always claim that you have Czech babushka.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  >Slavs Not based on Federal guidelines and requirements for recording race/ethnicity data.
nemo44x 5y ago
Why would any of them claim to be Asian? I’ve known Asians that “lied” on their applications by setting themselves to white. Anyways, race should be banned from everything.
mbg721 5y ago
In order for this even to constitute lying, colleges would have to define "white". Nobody wants to do that, because it would look exactly like arbitrary 19th-century ethno-purism.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  There is a federal definition for "white". I'm not sure why you would believe otherwise. Look up what the EEOC says about it. There is also a Federal definition for "Native American", a common choice in this survey, so even if a person was unsure of the definition of white, they could figure out if they were not some of the other options and avoid lying. Either way, lying in this case is at least as much about what the person believes about themselves. If a person is saying they're something, and don't actually consider themselves to be that thing, then it seems to at least be some form of deliberate deception.
  - mbg721 5y ago
    I was surprised that such a definition actually existed. It's "a person having origins in any of the peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa". The obvious problem with it is that it pretends children were never produced across its boundaries, but make of it what you will.
tomxor 5y ago
A good example of why racism is not a solution to racism. It doesn't matter that the intention is to help minorities, it will always end up harming them in unforeseen ways... Here's another way: artificially favour minorities in submission to education => employers now perceive minorities as unlikely to have attained qualification based on merit alone => -1 point Every positive will turn into a negative - just stop being racist, in all ways. Equality != racism * -1
zhdc1 5y ago
From the article: "All data found within this report derives from a survey commissioned by Intelligent.com and conducted online by survey platform Pollfish. In total, 1,250 white Americans were surveyed. To qualify for the survey, each respondent had to have previously applied to a college or university in the U.S. Appropriate respondents were found via a screening question. This survey was conducted on July 13, 2021. All respondents were asked to answer all questions truthfully and to the best of their abilities." In other words, they used a single online anonymous sample, which are well known to be biased and - depending on where they sample from - provide less than accurate results. I haven't used Pollfish personally, but looking at their website, .95 USD puts them in Amazon Mechanical Turk territory. Granted, it's been three or four years since I used an online sample provider, but the reliable ones back then charged 3-4 USD+ per response and the fees escalated significantly if you had any specific requirements.
alexandrerond 5y ago
As Europeans it is hard to grasp that some places may attempt positive discrimination based on race and many comments go in this direction. But one of the things that most surprised me from visiting the US is the huge racial diversity, way more that we can enjoy in most of Europe, which is really a blessing for the US. I invite Europeans to picture the scenario of a society where large groups of population are routinely discriminated, abused, put in disadvantage based on the color of their skin, or their names, or the places where they live. It is just normal that institutions have positive discrimination policies. Oh wait, you don't have to do picture it since we actually do just that. It's just our "racial minorities" are even smaller and unable to form critical mass to cause change, something women and LGTB+ collectives more or less managed. See how immigrants are treated, particularly if they are not white enough.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  > something women and LGTB+ collectives more or less managed Those are often surprisingly white from my experience, but not relevant as someone Russia is culturally pretty different from someone from Portugal. Not by skin color though. Europe does employ positive discrimination but I don't think it is in any way constructive.
Andy_G11 5y ago
Interesting. 1,250 students surveyed and of those 437 were male, 813 female (if I have done my simultaneous equation correctly). Why the discrepancy? - Are white males currently less represented than white females on the surveyed campuses in the USA? There is probably room here for the stats to vary widely by campus surveyed, potentially even across courses within a single college. According to Kahneman (Thinking Fast and Slow), sample deficiencies are one of the biggest causes of incorrect deductions. Are there other surveys for comparison?
- ryathal 5y ago
  Colleges are roughly 40/60 M/F so this sample isn't too far out of whack. Further reducing to white only could easily make up the 5 point difference.
juanani 5y ago
If this isn't hacking, what is? These noobs should just patch the vulnerability but race trumps merit in the good ol' West.
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riddleronroof 5y ago
Consider the source of the survey, Intelligent.com I’ve never heard of them. And they write an article about their own research. Color me skeptical.
Vitaly 5y ago
the fact that it is even legal to ask about one’s race on the application is fucking crazy.
deepsun 5y ago
> 3/4 of students who faked minority status were accepted Mmm, and what percentage of those who did not fake were accepted? That 3/4 doesn't tell us anything without comparison to other group (and sample size).
desktopninja 5y ago
RE: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28980707 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28980707 Race is really a distraction. As someone pointed out, the real meat is rich vs poor. Imagine if on the last census, everyone in America identified as some other race. This would immediately squash the debate. But then we'll get something else. Perhaps democrates vs republicans will be the new headline .... "Many republican students lied about their affiliation to improve changes of admission". Maybe it is just me but all of this stuff just reeks "tribalism". It's all the same conflict but using different words.
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90 points by chuckee 5y ago

I am not white and I have lied on applications and government forms. I'm mixed. If the document doesn't cover my appropriate race I always put white. If I'm feeling really silly I will bubble in both black and white. I hate that in my court records it says black. Because I'm not black or white.

ineedasername 5y ago
If I'm feeling really silly That not silly-- Many forms of Federal compliance reporting guidelines require collection of the data to allow multiple selections so a person can say "both" (or more). Black & White are legitimate combinations that I see often. Though depending on how far back you go, this methodology wasn't always the case. And if it isn't for federal purposes, it doesn't apply, though many organizations may still use the federal format.

draw_down 5y ago

> 3/4 of people who faked being a racial minority on their applications were accepted by the colleges to which they lied Then I guess we better get used to it.

Kye 5y ago

Did it have an effect, though? It says 75% who lied got in, but what are the rates for people who were honest? How do rates vary by honest applicants across demographics? Of course, the answer is in the methodology: >> "All data found within this report derives from a survey commissioned by Intelligent.com and conducted online by survey platform Pollfish. In total, 1,250 white Americans were surveyed. To qualify for the survey, each respondent had to have previously applied to a college or university in the U.S. Appropriate respondents were found via a screening question." So this doesn't tell us anything without further study.

gus_massa 5y ago
I agree. Part of the problem is how they measure success. Most people apply to a lot of universities, so it's possible that each university accept only a tiny part of the application, but most people is accepted at least by one of them.
bluecalm 5y ago
Knowing that wouldn't help you. Even if the admission rates are the same there might be (and probably is) a selection bias - the more unsure you are about your chances of getting in the more incentive you have to lie to improve your chances.
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alephnan 5y ago

When they lie, do they say they are a non-white model minority ?

hasmolo 5y ago
these details are in the text and an info-graphic in the article itself. that said, it's mostly 'safe' minorities, with few claiming to be Black or other 'hard to pass' minorities.
matheusmoreira 5y ago
They say they self-identify as a minority, often due to sociocultural reasons.
- toyg 5y ago
  The worship of self-identification is effectively gutting words of any meaning.
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    Yup. They invented this "social construct" concept. This is obviously vulnerable to abuse. They have no choice but to accept it now. Either they accept it or they will be forced to admit that it is not a social construct.
- gambiting 5y ago
  Yep, you can be white and still a part of minority(disabled, immigrant, based on religion etc...)
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    Also, white hispanic isn’t uncommon at all.
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
From the article, seems like Native American is common. That kind of makes sense for the USA, as a lot of us have heard of a great great grand daddy who was from some tribe or another, but the stories turn out to either be anecdotal (not verifiable) or so diluted that it feels wrong to claim the connection. Elizabeth Warren got into a bit of trouble on this. It isn’t an uncommon problem, and I can see people admitting to lying here (even if they think there is a bit of truth to the claim).

dabbledash 5y ago

People pretend not to be white all the time to garner advantage in white supremacists societies… right? I’m sure it happened all the time in the Jim Crow south. ETA: I don’t think we live in a white-supremacist or anti-white culture. I think people talk about these things in absurdly reductionist ways and am poking fun at that.

amcoastal 5y ago
Nice point. You miss the obvious fact that these people are lying on an application about being nonwhite. I'm sure they don't walk down the street daily pretending to be non-white, nor would they lie about their race during a traffic stop. So congratulations, you found one small part of life where being nonwhite has an advantage. You're so unwoke.
- the_af 5y ago
  The comment you're replying to is sarcastic. It is actually saying being not white has more downsides than upsides.
  - amcoastal 5y ago
    I'll disagree until the OP claims sarcasm. The comment easily reads as white grievance about how our society is "obviously not white supremacist" because "why would people lie about being white in a white supremacist country"? To which I replied the obvious answer to such a dumb conjecture. Unfortunately the title has drawn in many comments exactly like this, its sad people can't think 2 inches from their face. I'll take the downvotes from cranky white people with pride.
  - ithkuil 5y ago
    The comment is indeed sarcastic. It seems to imply that the US is not a white supremacist society because otherwise why would white people pretend to not be white? During a period of racial segregation like the one cited in the comment, people were not pretending to be non-white (the comment used sarcasm again stating "I'm sure that it happened all the time"). So the point of that comment wasn't that being non-white has more downsides than upsides, but rather that people describing the USA as a country where white supremacy is the dominant ideology are exaggerating.

thejackgoode 5y ago

It's ironic how "positive discrimination" produces incentives that make life of minorities worse

hasmolo 5y ago
i mean i feel like white dudes claiming to be a minority to poison the whole point of attempting to boost non-white representation is probably not a good example of 'positive discrimination'. a whole bunch of people destroying the purpose of attempted representation increases for minorities, while claiming it doesn't work because they broke it, is so comically disingenuous I have to assume you're doing it to harm us all.
- draw_down 5y ago
  Jumping to white “dudes” is funny. In America at least, the most famous examples of someone doing this are a white woman politician who blatantly lied about being Native American/First Nations, and a white woman who pretended to be black in order to run a local chapter of the NAACP.
- thejackgoode 5y ago
  Feels like you did not have a chance to read my comment because of the blur of fingerpointing too fast. When any system gives preference to an identity it's expected behavior to attempt to pass as a carrier of said identity. It does not matter what the identity is.
  - hasmolo 5y ago
    i can understand how you'd feel that way. i'm addressing this: > It's ironic how "positive discrimination" produces incentives that make life of minorities worse and now you're saying: > When any system gives preference to an identity it's expected behavior to attempt to pass as a carrier of said identity. It does not matter what the identity is. this is where we disagree, you are implying that people using a lie about race is 'harming' minorities here, but it isn't. some people are taking advantage of it, but the hyper majority aren't. i think our core difference is this: i don't think the people here abusing the system are actually having a meaningful impact or harm on those that this program actually helps. i think that acting like that's the case to remove this condition is the more long term harmful effect. in the end we disagree on the impact of the people abusing this system, and i don't imagine we will be able to agree on this, but i appreciate the perspective you've given me.

Bostonian 5y ago

Such lying would not make a difference if college admissions did not discriminate on the basis of race. It's interesting that 48% of white boys vs. 16% of white girls admit to lying about race.

Craighead 5y ago
"Discriminate" is an interesting word choice. Why that word?

gvv 5y ago

> being white is a privilege > you need to lie that you're not white to gain privilege Pick one

endisneigh 5y ago
These aren't really contradictory statements, tho.
spywaregorilla 5y ago
being white is generally a huge privilege but in some contexts being not white is advantageous.
pandatigox 5y ago
It's a privilege to gain the benefits of an ethnicity while not having to suffer the disadvantages associated with that ethnicity.
chuckee 5y ago
While I believe white privilege is overstated, the sibling comment is correct that these are not mutually exclusive. https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/05/23/can-things-be-both-popular-and-silenced/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/05/23/can-things-be-both-pop... makes an analogous point.
ketzu 5y ago
It seems like not as strong. A more jokish version might be: > Having no kids is a financial advantage > You have to claim kids on your tax form to save more on taxes The two may not be as exclusive as they seem.
paulcole 5y ago
2 things can be true at once. It’s doubtless that at a overall societal level white privilege exists in the United States. From the article it also seems that in some isolated situations there are benefits to not being perceived as white.
Frost1x 5y ago
I don't think they're mutually exclusive they just apply at different times because we have inconsistent standards. Being white gives you a lot of advantages, but I'd say on occasion (affirmative action, diversity based decisions, etc.) then playing non-white can be advantageous. My underlying concern is that in a highly competitive society where we're so pushed at every corner we look for any advantages we can take to get ahead (reasons people lie about silly things like race/ethnicity), how do we maintain trust and cohesion in our society? At some point, people will lie about anything and everything to get ahead to a point that I no longer believe even the most trivial of statements they claim. At that point, my trust is completely removed. It's already well on its way down to nothing but at least now I can look at motives and question why someone may or may not lie and think about the large obvious factors. At some point, the factors people lie about may become so asinine to get ahead that I have 0 trust in anyone at all anymore. How do you operate in a society where trust is all but completely removed.

hstan4 5y ago

> 48% of people who lied claimed to be Native American Thanks Elizabeth Warren

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grodes 5y ago

Just don't make decisions based on race. That's what nazis did.

zapdrive 5y ago
I'm sure you would be called a racist just for saying that. Haha. The irony!
- 1ibsq 5y ago
  nevertheless I don't think it's clever to completely discard the idea. Giving incentives to underprivileged people is a way to counter steer an unfairness. It has to be a temporary vehicle and not a permanent solution though - that's an important point to accknowledge.
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laurent92 5y ago
Tell that to the UN. In June 2021, they encouraged France and Germany to use race statistics to help increase chances for non-Whites. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/16/france-and-germany-urged-to-rethink-reluctance-to-gather-ethnicity-data https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/16/france-and-ger... https://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/l-onu-exhorte-la-france-a-recourir-aux-statistiques-ethniques-pour-lutter-contre-le-racisme-systemique-20210701 https://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/l-onu-exhorte-la-fr...

johan12345 5y ago

Just a question from a non-american. Why is it so important to keep track on which "race" people belong to in America?

hasmolo 5y ago
because our national culture indexes people's worth based on race in very structural ways. america's hegemony is based on the entire concept of 'western superiority', and that the core way to boost QOL is to create a subservient class that actually wants to be used.
- strogonoff 5y ago
  From the outside it seems frustrating that instead of addressing the underlying issue—indexing individual’s worth based on race (or other unalienable characteristics)—the solution is to keep applying the same logic, just assigning different weights to the output. For example, financial aid should not depend on race, but on actual financial situation. If it happens to be generally worse for certain minorities, you’ve achieved your goal—and without using racial discrimination. Judging by one’s appearance seems like the lazy way out.
  - bsanr2 5y ago
    How would you propose to level the entrenched inequities if not by reversing the previously unequal distribution of scarce resources?
    - raxxorrax 5y ago
      If we talk about inequities, why not use economic factors? Get the money from equity holders. Probably from BlackRock in this case, not from WhiteRock.
      - bsanr2 5y ago
        Because race was an explicit and continues to be an implicit factor in separating the haves from the have-nots. >Probably from BlackRock in this case, not from WhiteRock. That's cultural appropriation.

gtirloni 5y ago

Textbook case of incentives having unwanted consequences.

quantumfissure 5y ago

I'm white with a "more ethnic sounding" name. I wasn't getting callbacks or interviews by filling out that information on job applications or in Linkedin. Despite having 9+ years in Tech for a major company. The day after I removed my picture off LinkedIn and stopped answering the "race" question on applications, I started getting tons of calls. YMMV, but that was my experience, so I'm not shocked.

endisneigh 5y ago
What exactly is an "ethnic sounding" name? Pretty much all the literature out there shows that people with more "white names" get more interviews and have more callbacks. 2008 - https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/35823/1/584702035.pdf https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/35823/1/584702035.pd... 2016 - http://www-2.rotman.utoronto.ca/facbios/file/Whitening%20MS%20R2%20Accepted.pdf http://www-2.rotman.utoronto.ca/facbios/file/Whitening%20MS%... 2017 - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2378023117737193 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23780231177371...
- dotancohen 5y ago
  Probably a name that was never used by a King of England or found in the New Testament, if the GP is from the US.
- quantumfissure 5y ago
  My first and last name aren't typical Anglo-Saxon (i.e. John; Mark; Bill; Ken; etc...).
  - endisneigh 5y ago
    So anything that's not Anglo-Saxon is ethnic sounding? What country are you based in?
    - Jensson 5y ago
      > What country are you based in? From context it is USA. Asking job applicants about race is illegal or at least not common in most countries.

endisneigh 5y ago

From the article: white young men report 3X higher numbers than white young women in lying to get an advantage. I wonder why the discrepancy here.

zapdrive 5y ago
Because being a woman is already an advantage these days. With woke culture and diversity hiring, women are already given priority. Even the universities are trying to "gender balance" their STEM majors by prioritizing women over men. So I guess that's why women don't have to lie.
InsomniacL 5y ago
I imagine it's because of the same reason people lied about their race. Women are considered 'under-represented' in some areas and so are actively sought after, so there is less benefit in lying about belonging to a group they consider 'over-represented'.

NmAmDa 5y ago

I applied for many grad schools and I don't remember having any of the applications gives my race correct. And to be fair the race options in US doesn't work for me in general. I chose white for applications that made the choice mandatory. I don't think this had put me in a disadvantage. I am the only international student who got accepted in the school I accepted and got offers from about 40% of schools I applied. I actually can think that identifying as a white is the advantage. But to be honest I don't think that it matter because in most applications I remember that they say it is just for stats and will not be a factor in admission.

enoch_r 5y ago

This seems incredibly unlikely to be true - if 34% of students lied, and 48% of people who lied claimed to be Native American, then ~17% of college students should be Native American. Which they're not, suggesting that this is probably bullshit. EDIT: Yes, this really seems extremely fishy, see: https://twitter.com/Daniel_Laurison/status/1453026929511055363 https://twitter.com/Daniel_Laurison/status/14530269295110553... > here's a quick reality check that @insidehighered could have done - took me under a minute to find this report. Less than 1% of applicants using the Common App said they were Native American in the 2 states I've looked at so far. > Ok ok, on a bit of further reflection if this (48% of 34% of white applicants say they're native american) were accurate it wouldn't be 17% of all apps, it would be 17% of all apps that SHOULD say white. Which is at least 53% of all apps, probably more. > 0.48×0.34×0.53 = 0.86 = at least 8.6% of all apps should claim to be NA (or 2 or more races). More to the point, if 34% of white applicants are saying they're not white, you'd expect some over-reprentation of "non-white" applicants, which is not what you see. More here, same conclusion: https://twitter.com/JonBoeckenstedt/status/1452864922765783045 https://twitter.com/JonBoeckenstedt/status/14528649227657830...

robotbikes 5y ago
All I needed to see was "conducted online by survey platform Pollfish". I don't know much about Pollfish but I am very suspect of online polling due to the challenge of finding representative sample sets.
chuckee 5y ago
Thank you for the fast catch. Since it was still within the edit window, I've tagged the story as likely fake.
newacct583 5y ago
Yeah, this is straight up journalistic malpractice by Intelligent.com. Publishing facts that are clearly contradicted by more reliable, obviously available facts is going way beyond gutter clickbaitery and veering straight off into propaganda. I look forward to having to correct this misconception in the coming years as it gets repeated ad nauseum by people who "saw it on the internet".

ineedasername 5y ago

I think it's more accurate to say "34% of respondents lied about race. Without more details, I'm skeptical that their methodology, as presented, was very rigorous to be able to extrapolate to the entire population. So this is very suggestive, but I'd like to see a more tightly controlled version conducted.

optimiz3 5y ago

Objectively, one way to protest the use of race in admissions is for everyone to lie making the practice useless. Game theory is strongly in favor of lying. Personally, it always infuriated me when I was applying in the early 2000s that most colleges had a checkbox for "underrepresented" minorities. Don't bother applying if you're not the "right" kind of minority.

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cyberbanjo 5y ago
Seems needlessly dangerous to lie on an application like that, just mark prefer not to answer.
- ravel-bar-foo 5y ago
  A high school guidance counsellor told our class that race in my jurisdiction was legally a matter of self-identification. The only danger is probably the social shame for being called out.
- optimiz3 5y ago
  Well in my case I marked it truthfully, but what is an institution going to do? Force genetic testing? Tell someone they aren't "x" enough? What if someone grew up adopted? No way an institution would dare challenge an answer.
  - sethammons 5y ago
    A white south african kid at my high school that graduated a year or two before me (20 years ago) put in for an african american scholarship as he had dual citizenship. Denied because he was white. Feels similar enough and shows someone challenging an answer.
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  Technically they can't force you to do a DNA test. But even if they could, you could do one in advance, and i'm pretty sure, with all the genetic mixing, you'd come to atleast 1% of some minority status and have papers to prove it.

mherdeg 5y ago

I'd like to see the getting into/paying for college trade press cover the modern state of the "surrender custody of your child so they can declare financial independence and qualify for a full tuition waiver based on their near-zero income" strategy (e.g. https://www.propublica.org/article/university-of-illinois-financial-aid-fafsa-parents-guardianship-children-students https://www.propublica.org/article/university-of-illinois-fi...). Is this strategy still viable? I couldn't find any coverage of it with a quick Web search ([site:intelligent.com independent student]). Maybe it's so good that the college-consultant industry is hoping it'll stay under the radar for a few more years?

lordnacho 5y ago

From the outside (Europe) you have to ask yourself why the US even recognizes such a thing as race. To start with, it's hard to define precisely. It also seems to be at odds with the idea of individual responsibility, and individual identity. Just let young people, who have not yet formed their identities, apply. And judge them by individual criteria, not what groups they happen to be part of. There's also a very superficial idea of diversity presented. Is your university really going to be diverse from simply having people with different skin color? Having varying skin tones does not tell you for instance whether all the institution's students are wealthy or poor. Or if they grew up in the same place. Or have the same attitudes, which I suppose is the real diversity that you want to have. As for lying about it, you can't really be surprised. If there's no checking, and people think ticking one box puts them at an advantage, why wouldn't they? Surely many of them have a similar attitude to race as what I'm writing, and why would you set yourself backward unjustly?

ajsnigrutin 5y ago
Yep.. a white person from washington, white person from italy and white person from belarus are more diverse than black, latino, asian and white persons from chicago. But it's $current_year, and race suddenly matters.
- mk81 5y ago
  It is currentYear and overt racism is fine now as long as the discrimination is directed at white folks (or Asians in an academic context).
- enumjorge 5y ago
  > But it's $current_year, and race suddenly matters. What is with the terrible discussion happening on this thread? There are black people alive in the US today who in their lifetime could not use the same bathroom or schools as white people. In what world did race not “matter” until now?
  - raxxorrax 5y ago

bsanr2 5y ago

As a black man, I usually decline to put my race on job applications. Even though EEOC information isn't supposed to be used to discriminate against applicants, I don't believe for a second that it isn't. Unfortunately, having attended an HBCU, I don't know how helpful that is. I've seriously considered, recently, marking my race as "white" for future apps. It wouldn't be a complete lie; my great-grandmother was white. However, I keep remembering th anecdotes of black professionals with "white-sounding" names who were welcomed enthusiastically during the phone interview, only to get the cold shoulder when they showed up to the office. In case anyone was keeping track, the ability to get the job you trained in your degree for is more important than getting into your specific desired degree program. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/african-americans-with-college-degrees-are-twice-as-likely-to-be-unemployed-as-other-graduates/430971/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/african...

mc32 5y ago

If Elizabeth Warren could make this fib into a potent political career, why wouldn’t anyone else?

buggythebug 5y ago

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emergie 5y ago

I heard that Slavs are considered PoC in the USA. You can always claim that you have Czech babushka.

ineedasername 5y ago
>Slavs Not based on Federal guidelines and requirements for recording race/ethnicity data.

nemo44x 5y ago

Why would any of them claim to be Asian? I’ve known Asians that “lied” on their applications by setting themselves to white. Anyways, race should be banned from everything.

mbg721 5y ago

In order for this even to constitute lying, colleges would have to define "white". Nobody wants to do that, because it would look exactly like arbitrary 19th-century ethno-purism.

ineedasername 5y ago
There is a federal definition for "white". I'm not sure why you would believe otherwise. Look up what the EEOC says about it. There is also a Federal definition for "Native American", a common choice in this survey, so even if a person was unsure of the definition of white, they could figure out if they were not some of the other options and avoid lying. Either way, lying in this case is at least as much about what the person believes about themselves. If a person is saying they're something, and don't actually consider themselves to be that thing, then it seems to at least be some form of deliberate deception.
- mbg721 5y ago
  I was surprised that such a definition actually existed. It's "a person having origins in any of the peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa". The obvious problem with it is that it pretends children were never produced across its boundaries, but make of it what you will.

tomxor 5y ago

A good example of why racism is not a solution to racism. It doesn't matter that the intention is to help minorities, it will always end up harming them in unforeseen ways... Here's another way: artificially favour minorities in submission to education => employers now perceive minorities as unlikely to have attained qualification based on merit alone => -1 point Every positive will turn into a negative - just stop being racist, in all ways. Equality != racism * -1

zhdc1 5y ago

From the article: "All data found within this report derives from a survey commissioned by Intelligent.com and conducted online by survey platform Pollfish. In total, 1,250 white Americans were surveyed. To qualify for the survey, each respondent had to have previously applied to a college or university in the U.S. Appropriate respondents were found via a screening question. This survey was conducted on July 13, 2021. All respondents were asked to answer all questions truthfully and to the best of their abilities." In other words, they used a single online anonymous sample, which are well known to be biased and - depending on where they sample from - provide less than accurate results. I haven't used Pollfish personally, but looking at their website, .95 USD puts them in Amazon Mechanical Turk territory. Granted, it's been three or four years since I used an online sample provider, but the reliable ones back then charged 3-4 USD+ per response and the fees escalated significantly if you had any specific requirements.

alexandrerond 5y ago

As Europeans it is hard to grasp that some places may attempt positive discrimination based on race and many comments go in this direction. But one of the things that most surprised me from visiting the US is the huge racial diversity, way more that we can enjoy in most of Europe, which is really a blessing for the US. I invite Europeans to picture the scenario of a society where large groups of population are routinely discriminated, abused, put in disadvantage based on the color of their skin, or their names, or the places where they live. It is just normal that institutions have positive discrimination policies. Oh wait, you don't have to do picture it since we actually do just that. It's just our "racial minorities" are even smaller and unable to form critical mass to cause change, something women and LGTB+ collectives more or less managed. See how immigrants are treated, particularly if they are not white enough.

raxxorrax 5y ago
> something women and LGTB+ collectives more or less managed Those are often surprisingly white from my experience, but not relevant as someone Russia is culturally pretty different from someone from Portugal. Not by skin color though. Europe does employ positive discrimination but I don't think it is in any way constructive.

Andy_G11 5y ago

Interesting. 1,250 students surveyed and of those 437 were male, 813 female (if I have done my simultaneous equation correctly). Why the discrepancy? - Are white males currently less represented than white females on the surveyed campuses in the USA? There is probably room here for the stats to vary widely by campus surveyed, potentially even across courses within a single college. According to Kahneman (Thinking Fast and Slow), sample deficiencies are one of the biggest causes of incorrect deductions. Are there other surveys for comparison?

ryathal 5y ago
Colleges are roughly 40/60 M/F so this sample isn't too far out of whack. Further reducing to white only could easily make up the 5 point difference.

juanani 5y ago

If this isn't hacking, what is? These noobs should just patch the vulnerability but race trumps merit in the good ol' West.

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riddleronroof 5y ago

Consider the source of the survey, Intelligent.com I’ve never heard of them. And they write an article about their own research. Color me skeptical.

Vitaly 5y ago

the fact that it is even legal to ask about one’s race on the application is fucking crazy.

deepsun 5y ago

> 3/4 of students who faked minority status were accepted Mmm, and what percentage of those who did not fake were accepted? That 3/4 doesn't tell us anything without comparison to other group (and sample size).

desktopninja 5y ago

RE: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28980707 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28980707 Race is really a distraction. As someone pointed out, the real meat is rich vs poor. Imagine if on the last census, everyone in America identified as some other race. This would immediately squash the debate. But then we'll get something else. Perhaps democrates vs republicans will be the new headline .... "Many republican students lied about their affiliation to improve changes of admission". Maybe it is just me but all of this stuff just reeks "tribalism". It's all the same conflict but using different words.

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