亚裔申请的时候会努力让自己别太“亚裔”

早在“哈佛申请歧视亚裔”这个案子之前，亚裔自己内部就已经有了一个不成文的规则：申请的时候别暴露自己太多的亚裔特点。

the rumor thatstudents can appear “too Asian”has hardened into a kind of received wisdom within many Asian American communities, along with the idea that Asian American students must meet a higher bar academically than other racial groups to get into the same schools.

比如在申请的时候，不想表明自己的族裔身份

When it came time to fill out his college application form, Max Lichose not to declare his race.Even though he knew his last name sounded Chinese, he selected “prefer not to say.”

选AP课程的时候，不要选AP Chinese，哪怕考好了，也不能显示自己的能力

Clara Chen was advised to avoid the Advanced Placement exam for Chinese because college admissions officers might assume, based on her last name, that she already spoke the language, which couldundermine the value of her score.She took the test for Advanced Placement French instead.

又或者别提自己有国际象棋的爱好。

When Marissa Li was growing up, she loved playing competitive chess, and spent hours studying the matches of some of her favorite players, like Bobby Fischer. But on her college application,she barely mentioned her interest in the gamebecause she was afraid that it might come across as too stereotypically Asian.

甚至有一个专门的行业存在（申请咨询），其工作就是让亚裔申请者包装的没那么亚裔。

“an entire industry exists to help them appear ‘less Asian’ on their college applications.”The group pointed to a popular test-prep guide published in 2004 by the Princeton Review, which advised students of Asian descent to try to conceal their racial identity.

申请咨询公司会建议别写移民故事，不要勾选族裔信息。

Writing about your family’simmigrant hardship story is too basic.Anddon’t bother checking the race boxon the common application unless you’re Latino or Black — doing so may not hurt your chances of getting in, but it won’t help you either.

对于一些拉丁裔的学员会建议可以凸显自己的拉丁裔特点；但是对于亚裔的学生会建议避免自己变得太亚裔了。

... while his company’s Latino clients often emphasized their ethnicity and their engagement with Hispanic cultural organizations on their college applications, his company frequently gave Asian American students the opposite advice, urging them toshift away from “classically Asian activities” to improve their chances of getting into the country’s elite universities.

...

哪些特点是比较“亚裔”的呢？

... so-called typically Asian activities such asChinese language school, piano and Indian classical instruments like the venu flute.

但“亚裔”的概念可能都不是那么好定义的，毕竟从中西南北中亚，都被归类在“亚裔”者统称下面了，而这些亚洲的地区是那么的不同。

Asian Americans are ahugely diverse, complicated group, and students don’t fit into cookie-cutter stereotypes.

...

尽管在“哈佛亚裔案”里哈佛方强调了录取的时候是综合考虑的，关于族裔的因素影响因子很小。

Harvard and supporters of affirmative action have argued that there is no such thing as a penalty for Asians and thatrace is, in fact, one factor among many used to evaluate applicants.

数据上看，亚裔在哈佛的录取比重今年来也有上升。

They made up about 28 percent of those admitted this year, up from nearly 20 percent in 2013.By comparison, Asians make up about 7 percent of the country’s population. (About 15 percent of admitted students this year were Black; 13 percent were Latino; and 3 percent were Native American.)

但亚裔申请权对于在录取时被区别对待的担心还是很强

But Harvard’s arguments havedone little to dispel the suspicions of many Asian Americans.Consultants say that, if anything, concerns among students about appearing too Asian are only growing.

也有些亚裔申请者会申请时候加入族裔相关的内容，但也会刻意避免一些刻板印象的内容。

Some of the students said they had written about their Asian identity in their admissions applications, but they described carefully calibrated essays — intended to relay an applicant’s life while alsoavoiding stereotypes.

也有申请者以自己的族裔为傲，表示在申请的时候没什么好避讳的。

“In terms of college applications, I don’t think I’m going to try to stay away from that,” she said.“It is who I am.”