Checking Other?

[baffalaff]

I've always been unsure about my family's heritage on one side of  my family. My mother never met her father and was very very estranged from her mother, so she knows very little and trying to get her to talk about it is near impossible. I look a LOT more like my dad (who is sicilian) than my mom, so ive never really been considered anything else at first glance, but then ive never liked the whole concept of checking off boxes for race etc because my mom refuses to consider herself caucasian. For my lsdas thing i checked off 'other' because I didnt feel like i necessarily fit into any of the categories. Im not planning on putting anything else on my application, and im not trying to be counted as a URM/get AA, but i just feel odd checking caucasian. After seeing all sorts of threads where people are talking about how dangerous checking something that you cant prove is, is there a chance this could be a problem if law schools somehow decide that im not "other?" I probably should have just checked decline to report, but i didnt think about it at the time and just went with other...

[thorc954]

What race does your mother look like? Also, sicilians arent necessarily white anyway, so you can float by with checking other. It is all about what you consider yourself anyway. Worst case they will either think you are white or mixed since you checked it. The only ones with benefits from checking races are URMs, so it wont help you or hurt you either way with your decision. I would just let it slide. If you feel like defining your race to them, attach a three or four line addendum saying "my mother is non-white but adopted so I really dont know my actual race." I put other on an application to one school and had no real response either way. The only way you can run into problems is if you are white and check a race you are not.