Within the demographics section on the  CommonApp profile, EVERY  option for specific race selection (Ex: Within the White selection, you can specify if you are European White, Middle Eastern, or Other white) has an OTHER option.

 However, on the Asian race selection, you can specify “Other Southeast Asian”, “Other East Asian”, or “Other South Asian” but someone who is Central Asian, like Uyghur, Kazakh, or Uzbek, cannot describe their racial identity properly. Often they end up having to choose “White”, and reporting their race in the “Other” section for White. The problem with this is that not all Central Asians identify themselves as White, and this creates misrepresentation. 

For many Central Asians living in America, explaining their race to strangers with no knowledge of their county is a bit of a problem. Going through that is already a bit of an isolating experience, but it’s made worse by the fact that many college or job applications which require you to select your ethnicity do not even include “Central Asian”, “Turk”, or even “Other” as an option in the specific Asian race selection. 

The purpose of this petition is by no means to blame the organization which runs CommonApp of xenophobia or racism, but to bring awareness to this issue.  The creator of this petition and its supporters seek to encourage organizations which lack diversity in race selections to change their options in order to be more representative of the entire US population. 

About the Creator: 
My name is Laura, and I am a Kazakh-American girl who was born in the United States. I decided to make this petition because me and other Central Asian people I know in my life could not properly report their race on surveys,  job applications, or in my case, college applications, because the drop down menus for race selection were usually never diverse enough to include Central Asians as a racial identity, or include a “Other” race option.