Not to mention how politically incorrect it would be to try to call someone out on it: "Hey, aren't you Louis Smith? You said you were black on the application, but you don't look black at all!"
Not to mention how politically incorrect it would be to try to call someone out on it: "Hey, aren't you Louis Smith? You said you were black on the application, but you don't look black at all!"
I can't imagine it happening.
I saw it happen, back at my law school in the 1980s. (I have no comment about how generally this might happen today.) The classmate of mine who was called out about his "race" self-identification had a dad who almost anyone in the United States would identify as "black" (who definitely had African ancestry, along with European ancestry) and a mom whose historically traceable ancestry was all European. He (the student) himself looked "white," so much so that he could pass as my brother. According to a report in our university's daily newspaper, after his presence in the Black Student Association (to which new students who had indicated that they were black were automatically invited by the law school) became noted, when he filled out his application forms, he checked the boxes for both "white" and "black." (This was before "choose one or more" was the standard language next to race categories on admission forms.) He stayed in law school, and he graduated, and he still practices law. But the other members of the Black Student Association ostracized him, even though he shared many aspects of the black experience in his daily life, and would have legally been classified as black in any southern state during segregation. (Our state, Minnesota, has never had de jure "race" segregation nor has it ever had a law against "interracial" marriage.)
No, they're not likely to say it, but they'll know you lied about it, and that will color their perception of you. It just seems to me like a bad idea all around.
It seems unethical, sure. But a "bad idea"? Consider that all of the following must be true for it to affect how you are perceived by a non-trivial number of people:
1) someone on the admissions committee must come to know you (that is, match your face to your name)
2) they must then remember that you were one of the people who identified as black on an application
3) they must then assume that you aren't actually black based on appearance alone (knowing that there are indeed many half-black people who don't look obviously black)
4) they must then decide to tell other important people about this
This just seems really unlikely in any reasonably sized school. If you really want to be careful, find out who is on the admissions committee and avoid them.
I can't imagine it happening.