MIT is the first university to publish racial data In the class of 2028 since the Supreme Court ended affirmative action in admissions last year. To no one's surprise, the school's percentage of black, Latino, Native American and Pacific Islander students declined from 25% The percentage of students who get into college has dropped by 16 percent in just one year. MIT is not alone; it is simply the first university to announce the inevitable. If a university were to formally use race in the admissions process — and most American universities did until the court decision — its percentages would likely decline as well.
Without seeing racial checkboxes on applications, admissions committees can’t know for sure whether a student comes from a background that’s underrepresented at their schools. But there are other ways to tell, and a student’s race isn’t the only type of minority group that colleges are actively trying to recruit. While affirmative action is no longer used in its original form, colleges are employing a different kind of action — one that’s just as nuanced as its predecessor.
Certain genders, family compositions, and geographic communities, as well as educational and socioeconomic backgrounds, make up a university's definition of diversity. By removing race from admissions criteria, at least on the surface, these other categories are given higher priority. Conversely, students who come from backgrounds that are common in an applicant pool may be held to a higher standard.
Everyone wants to know how to look attractive on a college application. Simply put, colleges want what they don't have, or what they don't have in large quantities.
Most universities continue to seek out people of Black, Latino, Native American, or Pacific Islander descent. Students who identify as male are also highly desirable, especially for liberal arts schools and programs. With a few exceptions, such as MIT, Men represent the minority in most universities.Students who come from single-parent households are rare in the applicant pool. Low- and middle-income students, first-generation college students, and those who come from states such as Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Alaska, Mississippi, and Alabama are viewed as highly desirable by most colleges, as are students who come from rural communities within states that have many urban and suburban applicants.
On the contrary, Students who identify as female are admitted at lower rates At most colleges, students who come from a family in which both parents have college degrees are held to a higher standard than first-generation college students, because the former group has traditionally had more resources to succeed. If parents have college or graduate degrees, the standard is higher, and it will be even higher if the parents appear to have well-paying jobs.
White, Asian, Jewish and wealthy students apply in large numbers to colleges, which can make admission more competitive for people in those groups. Some of these students try to hide their backgrounds, but admissions officers look for identifiers on the application. When I worked in admissions at an Ivy League university, among the things I paid attention to were the names of students and their parents, their addresses, high school attendance, activities and awards — any of which might suggest or reveal things about the student’s background.
That’s why I’ve always told students not to hide their story. Admissions officers will almost always figure it out, with or without checkboxes. Students who come from underrepresented backgrounds should write about this aspect of their identity somewhere in the application, either in the main essay or in a supplemental essay about diversity. Overrepresented students worry about what to write in those diversity-focused essays. I encourage them to consider aspects of their life that they may overlook. These could include something that makes their family unconventional, like having a grandparent living with them, a unique cadence to their speech, or even something unusual about their neighborhood.
The upcoming admissions cycle is stressful for all applicants. Not all Black, Latino, Native American and Pacific Islander students know that writing about their race can give them an advantage. And overrepresented students may not know how to identify what makes them different from their peers.
Colleges claim that racial discrimination doesn't happen in the admissions process — at least not anymore. But forms of intolerance have plagued the industry for more than a century, always with a shifting target. Some groups are always “in” and others are always “out”; the public often just doesn't know who they are until it's too late.
In this admissions cycle, students should do their best to reveal how their backgrounds and experiences will enhance the mix of a student body. And schools have at least one clear goal: Without explicit racial considerations, minority-seeking colleges should strive even harder to diversify their campuses.
Sara Harberson is the author of “Soundbite: The Admissions Secret That Gets You into College and Beyond” and the founder of Nation ApplicationShe was associate dean of admissions at the University of Pennsylvania and dean of admissions at Franklin & Marshall College.
