The public policies connected to ethnicity as a factor in college admission are very controversial. One result of the controversy is that colleges are reluctant to publish information that would help members of the public figure out how much of an admission difference ethnicity makes. Previous court cases that have gone up to the Supreme Court have shown that sometimes it has made a substantial difference at some state universities, where it shouldn't make a difference at all, constitutionally (under the fourteenth amendment). Privately operated colleges and universities have somewhat more flexibility in setting their admission policies, but they aren't always clear what those policies are, and sometimes forget to do research to figure out if what they think they are doing is what they are actually doing in effect.
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ff0615S.pdf BW Online | July 7, 2003 | Needed: Affirmative Action for the Poor