Admissions officers won’t say, "This Asian kid is boring." What will they say? At any given time, at least one stereotype or cliche threatens to typecast your admissions package. Is this fact a sure marker of rejection? No. Should you be wary of fitting strong racial or regional stereotypes? Yes.

High school seniors understandably miss a major factor in getting into colleges: how human the admissions readers are. After you submit your application, admissions officers' lives consist of eating, sleeping, and reading essays and teacher recommendations. After doing so year after year, they fall in danger of “seeing patterns” that look a great deal like ugly stereotypes.

Maybe they see that many Asian-Americans get high SAT scores and strive to get a better education to improve the lives of their first generation parents for all of the sacrifices made; perhaps many Caucasian applicants write about their lacrosse or football team leadership roles and applicants from economically poorer areas have many of the same tragic stories of poverty, broken families, and illnesses, year after year; influential individuals such as Lady Gaga, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump might end up the most cliche topics for the application year.

You will know these stereotypes before even heading into the college applications cycle, because American society is rife with references to what many of us genuinely, deeply believe: that all members of Group A are identical in this regard, and B in this second regard. Regardless of the stereotype(s) that relate to you, know that admissions officers are less likely to admit you on a gut level if you write about topics that seem to reinforce The Stereotype.

For practical purposes, this blog will discuss one commonly problematic stereotype in admissions: the Asian-American robot. Admissions officers have historically been sensitive to this stereotype. It directly plays against the mission statement  of every major university in the United States: to cultivate (multicultural and) intellectual diversity. Will these robots stampede the biology and math departments, leaving sociology and English under-represented? Will they do the equivalent of Occupy New York only during the Finals, and in the library? Will they be quiet in class and socially awkward comformists?

Realistically, no. But even if a solid 30 percent of Asian-American applicants seem to write about the same three topics, it becomes easy for admissions readers to read another Asian-American immigrant or parental angst story and think, "Robot."

Stereotypes are de-individualizing. They strip high school seniors and everyone else of the chance to be known as themselves instead of a category member. So do what you would do even if stereotypes didn’t exist: write thoughtful, interesting personal statements with lots of details and anecdotes. Combat admissions stereotypes with the raw humanity in your stories; assault them with the color and creative thoughtfulness that permeates your life. Don’t fear the stereotype especially if you know you truly own the story you have about that aspect - just be careful. Make sure that when you take out the pronoun "I" and replace it with your Asian friend's name, it can't still be applicable.  The deliberating, sleep-deprived and overworked admissions officers look forward to reading the essays and getting to know the unique you, not just what you think makes you sound good.