When Amanda Totten applied to California Lutheran University, she decided not to answer one question on her application, the one asking her to identify her race.

Totten, who is white, didn't think it should matter what her race was.

"It should be based on your grades, extra-curricular activities and SAT scores," said Totten, 21, who graduated from the Thousand Oaks university this year. "It shouldn't have anything to do with how I look."

Totten represents a trend among students nationwide who don't indicate their races on college applications, a number that grew by 144 percent from 1994 to 2004, according to the American Council on Education.

"This generation is less inclined to be defined in any way racially," said Matt Ward, dean of undergraduate enrollment at CLU. "They tire of categories. They'll check other,' then put human.'"

While the trend is spotty — it's not happening in the University of California system, for example — it could make it harder for colleges to prove they're attracting the diverse groups they want.

It also could make it harder for them to qualify for government grants and other programs that consider diversity.

"It's become a much more difficult process to figure out how well you've done," Ward said.

"As society changes, our toolbox will need to change, as far as how we measure our success."

Advantage or disadvantage

Colleges generally ask students to indicate their races when they apply, but many also give them the option of checking "multiracial," "other," or "decline to state." Students also have the option of not answering the question at all.

So why are growing numbers of students not revealing their races on college applications?

Some say they want to get into colleges on their own strengths, without their races putting them at either an advantage or disadvantage.

Some are biracial and don't want to choose one parent's race over the other.

And some, like Totten, simply don't think it should matter what race they are.

"Students don't want to be categorized," said Jane Sweetland, dean of enrollment at CSU Channel Islands in Camarillo. "They want to get in on their own merits. They don't want to be prejudged."

In the CSU system as a whole, the number of enrolled students who marked "decline to state" on their applications grew from 36 percent to 44 percent from 1998 to 2007.

Locally, CLU has seen a modest increase in students who declined to state their races, up from 3 percent in 2002, when that option was first offered, to 6 percent in 2007.

Pepperdine University in Malibu is seeing a similar trend, said Mike Truschke, director of admissions, though he did not have specific numbers.

Tough question to answer

The trend is even more obvious at the University of Kentucky, where the number of students who did not identify their races or ethnicities doubled in the past decade, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.

Despite the trend, most students do mark boxes indicating their races. But even then, they may wrestle with the question.

Consider Chris DeGuzman, 25, a senior at CSUCI. DeGuzman was born to a South American mother but adopted as a baby by a Filipino father and Italian mother.

He considers himself Hispanic, and that's the box he checked when he applied to CSUCI, but like many people, DeGuzman has wrestled with his identity.

"My mom taught me to speak Italian, so I identified culturally as very much Italian, plus there was the Filipino influence," he said. "Early on, sometimes I would mark other.' It's confusing."

Eventually, DeGuzman became more comfortable with his background as he learned more about his own culture and others.

Still, he is well aware that people may judge him based on his last name.

"When I've applied for jobs, I've thought, Are they going to hire me or not hire me because of my background?'" he said.

Race can be considered

Nationwide, in cases involving the University of Michigan, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a diverse class may be part of a well-rounded education, so race can be considered in admissions, though it can't be a defining factor.

California, however, has Proposition 209, which says colleges cannot target students by race, ethnicity, age, gender or religious belief.

Yet many students still believe their races or ethnicities could influence whether they get into their dream colleges. So they may check boxes if they believe it puts them at an advantage, Ward said.

A student who is white and African-American, for example, may check African-American because African-Americans tend to be under-represented on college campuses.

White or Asian students, on the other hand, might check "decline to state" because they tend to be over-represented.

"They may think that if they put they're white, they could potentially not have the same access as students who are traditionally under-represented," Ward said.

On the other hand, some students just find the categories confusing.

"A lot of students will ask, What do I put here?'" said Imelda Fernandez, an admissions counselor at CSUCI. "They get so confused because their parents are biracial or multiracial. They'll say, Do I just check all the boxes?' Or they say, I have no idea, so I'm not even going there.'"

What colleges can do

And then there are the students who aren't quite clear on the definitions.

On one application, a student marked multiracial, then wrote in "Italian and Irish," Ward said.

So if colleges can't make race or ethnicity a key factor in admission, how can they create diverse classes?

They can recruit students who traditionally have been under-represented, admissions officers say. Or they can look for students from low-income families, or who would be the first in their families to go to college.

Given how society is changing, maybe colleges will choose to change how they ask the question, too, Fernandez said.

"They'll probably have more combos of choices," she said. "Or they might say, Check all that apply' — something that gives them a hint of where students are coming from."