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02-11-2009, 09:59 AM
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#1 | | Super Moderator
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| "Race" in College Admissions FAQ & Discussion 3
[Moderators Note:
A new version of this thread "Race" in College Admissions FAQ & Discussion 4
has just been posted, now that this thread has accumulated hundreds of replies. The new thread will be updated with the latest information on this subject.] Ethnic Self-identification Is Optional.
Students are often puzzled about how to respond to questions on college applications about race or ethnicity. In recent years, on a variety of college identification forms that I have checked online, there has been a clear statement that self-identifying ethnicity is OPTIONAL. That self-identifying by ethnicity is optional has been clear on the Common Application, https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/...monApp2008.pdf
which is what many colleges (for example Harvard and Carleton) use as their main or sole application form. Self-identifying ethnicity has also been clearly optional on the Universal Application, which various colleges, including Harvard, also accept. MIT in recent years has had its own application form, http://web.mit.edu/admissions/pdf/MITpart1.pdf
and asks its own brand of the ethnicity question,
"OPTIONAL (U.S. citizens and permanent residents only)
In connection with its Affirmative Action Plan, the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology guarantees equal opportunity in education
to students of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. I consider myself to
belong to the following ethnic group(s) (check all that apply):"
Columbia University has its own application form, http://www.studentaffairs.columbia.e...rstyearapp.pdf
which also makes clear that ethnic self-identification information is optional.
The University of North Carolina is another college with its own application form, http://www.admissions.unc.edu/pdf/20...pplication.pdf
which says
"Ethnicity How would you describe yourself? Please check one.
(this information is optional and will not be used in a discriminatory manner.)"
Every college in the United States is required by federal law to track requested ethnic data on students based on student self-identification. The colleges have to ask for these data, and have to report them to the federal government, but students don't have to self-identify with any ethnic or racial category. Colleges are NOT required to use self-identified race or ethnicity as an admission factor. Some colleges do and some do not. (Some state colleges and universities are prohibited by state law in their states from considering race as an admission factor.) The questions are asked for federal reporting requirements but may or may not be a significant admission factor at some college you like. At ALL colleges, without exception, it is permissible to decline to answer the questions.
Don't worry about it. Self-identify or not as you wish. You are always free to self-identify with humankind as a whole by not self-identifying with any narrower subset of humankind. Recognize that students from a variety of ethnic groups--including whatever group or groups you would identify with, if any--are admitted to each of your favorite colleges each year. On the other hand, admission to some colleges (e.g., Harvard) is just plain competitive, so lots of outstanding students self-identified with each ethnic group you can imagine (or not self-identified with any group) are not admitted each year. Do your best on your application, apply to a safety, and relax. http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/...y-college.html
Last edited by tokenadult; 07-06-2009 at 09:27 PM.
Reason: update and link to new thread
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02-11-2009, 10:01 AM
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#2 | | Super Moderator
Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: MN
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| Ethnic Categories Reported by Colleges Are Defined--Vaguely--by Federal Law
College reporting to the federal government is based on the U.S. Census bureau definitions for ethnic categories, which in turn are based on regulations from the Office of Management and Budget, because colleges are required to report by federal regulations, Revisions to the Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity
and you can look the definitions up on the Web. Black or African American persons, percent, 2000
"White. A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as 'White' or report entries such as Irish, German, Italian, Lebanese, Near Easterner, Arab, or Polish.
"Black or African American. A person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as "Black, African Am., or Negro," or provide written entries such as African American, Afro American, Kenyan, Nigerian, or Haitian." Persons of Hispanic or Latino origin, percent, 2000
"Hispanics or Latinos are those people who classified themselves in one of the specific Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino categories listed on the Census 2000 questionnaire -'Mexican, Mexican Am., Chicano,' 'Puerto Rican', or 'Cuban' -as well as those who indicate that they are 'other Spanish/Hispanic/Latino.' Persons who indicated that they are 'other Spanish/Hispanic/Latino' include those whose origins are from Spain, the Spanish-speaking countries of Central or South America, the Dominican Republic or people identifying themselves generally as Spanish, Spanish-American, Hispanic, Hispano, Latino, and so on.
"Origin can be viewed as the heritage, nationality group, lineage, or country of birth of the person or the person's parents or ancestors before their arrival in the United States.
"People who identify their origin as Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino may be of any race."
The federal Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has posted guidance to colleges about how they are to ask about student ethnicity and race according to the federally defined categories. Standard 1-5 - NCES Statistical Standards
You'll see that footnote 2 at the bottom of the NCES webpage says,
"The categories are presented in order of numerical frequency in the population, rather than alphabetically. Previous research studies have found that following alphabetical order in the question categories creates difficulties. That is, having "American Indian or Alaska Native" as the first category results in substantial over reporting of this category."
So the preferred order for listing racial categories to gather data for federal reporting is to first ask about Hispanic ethnicity, as defined by federal law and self-identified by the student, and then to ask about "race," again as defined by federal law and self-identified by the student, with the preferred order of listing race categories being
White
Black or African American
Asian
American Indian or Alaska Native
Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
in that order. But in actual practice most colleges do not list the categories in that preferred order on their application forms.
The Department of Education has more recently updated its guidance to colleges on how to ask ethnicity and race questions U.S. Department of Education; Office of the Secretary; Final Guidance on Maintaining, Collecting, and Reporting Racial and Ethnic Data to the U.S. Department of Education [OS]
or http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedReg...-4/101907c.pdf
and has requested colleges change their forms by the high school class of 2010 application year to ask a two-part question, first inquiring about Hispanic ethnicity and then about race, for each student. The student will still be free to decline to answer either part of the question.
"Unlike elementary and secondary institutions, generally, postsecondary institutions and Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) grantees use self-identification only and do not use observer identification. As discussed elsewhere in this notice, postsecondary institutions and RSA grantees will also be permitted to continue to include a 'race and ethnicity unknown' category when reporting data to the Department. This category is being continued in the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) because the National Center for Education Statistics’ experience has shown that (1) a substantial number of college students have refused to identify a race and (2) there is often not a convenient mechanism for college administrators to use observer identification."
See the National Center for Education Statistics Race/Ethnicity FAQ IPEDS Survey Material: View F.A.Qs Race/Athnicity
and the Association for Institutional Research Race/Ethnicity Information webpage Race/Ethnicity Information
and its subpages for more information about the current and planned practices of colleges as they prepare to implement the new federal regulations for high school class of 2010 applicants to college.
Students of higher education (and applicants to schools of postsecondary education) are treated as adults, and are explicitly permitted to decline to identify their ethnic or racial category.
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02-11-2009, 10:03 AM
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#3 | | Super Moderator
Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: MN
Posts: 14,892
| You Can Decline to Self-Identify with Any "Race" or Ethnic Group
It would be dishonest, and possibly grounds for revoking an offer of admission, to self-report according to a category that doesn't fit you at all. On the other hand, all of the categories named in federal law are based on self-identification and colleges have no means to double-check every student's self-identifying.
I find it interesting, and full of good hope for this country's future, that more and more college applicants are declining to self-report their ethnicity to colleges, http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/02/15/race2_15
which is everyone's right under law and something that someone of any ethnic self-identification might choose to do. People can decide this issue for themselves, but I like to emphasize in my own life, as a member of a "biracial" family, the common humanity my children, my wife, and I share with all our neighbors and compatriots.
The latest version of the Minorities in Higher Education Report http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cf...ontentID=23716
has a lot of detailed numbers (all based on reports colleges make to the federal government) about the growth in college enrollment in all the reported ethnic groups, and the growth of the group "race unknown."
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02-11-2009, 10:14 AM
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#4 | | Super Moderator
Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: MN
Posts: 14,892
| Many Colleges Admit Many Students Who Don't Self-Report Ethnicity
Here are some selective colleges with high percentages of students reported as "race unknown." These figures are based on Item B2, enrollment by racial/ethnic category, reported in the Common Data Set reports for each college (which in turn is based on IPEDS reporting to the federal government).
32 percent 1st-year, 26 percent undergrad at Bryn Mawr http://www.brynmawr.edu/institutiona...S2008_2009.pdf
29 percent 1st-year, 24 percent undergrad at Scripps College Scripps College : Common Data Set
23 percent 1st-year at William and Mary College Search - College of William and Mary - W&M - At a Glance
22 percent 1st-year at Yale College Search - Yale University - At a Glance
22 percent 1st-year, 18 percent undergrad at Reed College Reed College 2008-09 Common Data Set SecB
20 percent 1st-year at Amherst College College Search - Amherst College - At a Glance
20 percent 1st-year, 15 percent undergrad at Vanderbilt CDS B
20 percent 1st-year at University of Rochester College Search - University of Rochester - U of R - At a Glance
18 percent 1st-year at Penn College Search - University of Pennsylvania - Penn - At a Glance
18 percent 1st-year, 15 percent undergrad at Case Western Reserve http://www.case.edu/president/cir/20...s/enroll08.pdf
17 percent 1st-year, 14 percent undergrad at Brown http://www.brown.edu/Administration/...llment2008.pdf
16 percent 1st-year at Carnegie Mellon College Search - Carnegie Mellon University - At a Glance
16 percent 1st-year, 15 percent undergrad at Cornell http://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/100...mode=bookmarks
16 percent 1st-year at Tufts University College Search - Tufts University - At a Glance
16 percent 1st-year, 11 percent undergrad at University of Richmond http://oir.richmond.edu/CommonDataSets/CDS0809_B.pdf
15 percent 1st-year at Harvard College Search - Harvard College - At a Glance
15 percent 1st-year at Chicago College Search - University of Chicago - At a Glance
14 percent 1st-year at Pomona College Search - Pomona College - At a Glance
14 percent 1st-year, 8 percent undergrad at Wesleyan University http://www.wesleyan.edu/ir/cds/cds2008-09.pdf
13 percent 1st-year, 7 percent undergrad at Stanford Stanford University: Common Data Set 2008-2009
13 percent 1st-year at Cooper Union College Search - Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art - Cooper - At a Glance
12 percent 1st-year at University of Miami College Search - University of Miami - UM - At a Glance
11 percent 1st-year at Washington U in St. Louis College Search - Washington University in St. Louis - Washington U. - At a Glance
11 percent 1st-year at NYU College Search - New York University - NYU - At a Glance
11 percent 1st-year at Lehigh College Search - Lehigh University - At a Glance
11 percent 1st-year at Whitman College Search - Whitman College - At a Glance
11 percent 1st-year, 8 percent undergrad at Hamilton College https://my.hamilton.edu/college/inst...S2008_2009.pdf
10 percent 1st-year, 11 percent undergrad at Swarthmore College http://www.swarthmore.edu/Documents/...ir/cds2008.pdf
10 percent undergrad at Johns Hopkins University U-CAN: Johns Hopkins University
9 percent 1st-year, 8 percent undergrad at Columbia College Search - Columbia University - At a Glance http://www.columbia.edu/cu/opir/abst..._ethnicity.htm
9 percent 1st-year, 7 percent undergrad at Virginia UVa CDS: B. Enrollment
9 percent 1st-year at Davidson College College Search - Davidson College - At a Glance
8 percent 1st-year, 7 percent undergrad at Princeton http://registrar.princeton.edu/unive...on_cds2008.pdf
7 percent 1st-year at Boston College College Search - Boston College - BC - At a Glance
7 percent 1st-year at Berkeley College Search - University of California: Berkeley - At a Glance
7 percent 1st-year at Northwestern University College Search - Northwestern University - NU - At a Glance
6 percent 1st-year at MIT College Search - Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT - At a Glance
6 percent 1st-year, 5 percent undergrad at Middlebury http://www.middlebury.edu/NR/rdonlyr...S2008_2009.pdf
5 percent 1st-year, 5 percent undergrad at Dartmouth http://www.dartmouth.edu/~oir/pdfs/CDS2008_2009.pdf
4 percent 1st-year, 5 percent undergrad at Furman http://www.furman.edu/planning/CDS/2008CDSFurman.xls
Here are figures on students reported as "race/ethnicity unknown" from some other colleges, either from entering class of 2008 or from the year before. Note the very high figures at some colleges.
99 percent 1st-year at Hillsdale College College Search - Hillsdale College - At a Glance
95 percent 1st-year at Howard University College Search - Howard University - At a Glance
86 percent 1st-year at Keystone College College Search - Keystone College - At a Glance
82 percent 1st-year at McGill University College Search - McGill University - McGill - At a Glance
80 percent 1st-year at Savannah College of Art and Design College Search - Savannah College of Art and Design - SCAD - At a Glance
29 percent 1st-year at Champlain College College Search - Champlain College - CC - At a Glance
28 percent 1st-year at Rhode Island School of Design College Search - Rhode Island School of Design - RISD - At a Glance
26 percent 1st-year at George Mason College Search - George Mason University - At a Glance
23 percent 1st-year at Hartwick College College Search - Hartwick College - The Wick - At a Glance
21 percent 1st-year at Lynn University College Search - Lynn University - LU - At a Glance
20 percent 1st-year at SUNY Stony Brook College Search - State University of New York at Stony Brook - Stony Brook University - At a Glance
19 percent 1st-year at Adelphi College Search - Adelphi University - At a Glance
19 percent 1st-year at Fashion Institute of Technology College Search - Fashion Institute of Technology - FIT - At a Glance
17 percent 1st-year, 16 percent undergrad at American University http://www.american.edu/academic.dep...taSet_2008.pdf
14 percent 1st-year at Franklin College College Search - Franklin College - FC - At a Glance
9 percent 1st-year, 13 percent undergrad at Agnes Scott http://www.agnesscott.edu/Media/Webs...df/ir/cdsb.pdf
4 percent 1st-year at Whittier College College Search - Whittier College - At a Glance
Last edited by tokenadult; 02-24-2009 at 08:38 PM.
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02-11-2009, 10:21 AM
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#5 | | Super Moderator
Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: MN
Posts: 14,892
| Colleges Really, Truly Aren't Expected to Guess Student Ethnicity
From the Association for Institutional Research FAQ: FAQ Race/Ethnicity Topics Quote: |
Originally Posted by Association for Institutional Research Q: Can I require students/employees to complete the race/ethnicity questions?
A: No. You may only ask.
Q: How do I know if a student or employee refused to answer the questions or just overlooked them?
A: You don't.
Q: What is the level of effort needed to collect the new information?
A: Presenting the data collection form to students/employees is sufficient to ensure that individuals have had an opportunity to respond. Postsecondary institutions can report unknown when the respondent doesn’t reply—there is no need to use third-party observation to supply race/ethnicity. | | |
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02-11-2009, 10:34 AM
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#6 | | Super Moderator
Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: MN
Posts: 14,892
| United States Supreme Court Cases Related to Race and School Admission
Links to United States Supreme Court cases directly on point on the issue of "race" as a factor in college admission, illustrating what some colleges and professional schools have done over the years.
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke 438 U.S. 265 (1978) Oyez: Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978), U.S. Supreme Court Case Summary & Oral Argument
Gratz v. Bollinger 539 U.S. 244 (2003) Oyez: Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 (2003), U.S. Supreme Court Case Summary & Oral Argument
Grutter v. Bollinger 539 U.S. 306 (2003) Oyez: Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003), U.S. Supreme Court Case Summary & Oral Argument
Two more recent cases, decided last year, refined the Supreme Court's statements on the more general issue of considering "race" in school placement at the K-12 level.
Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 551 U.S. ___ (2007) Oyez: Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, 551 U.S. ___ (2007), U.S. Supreme Court Case Summary & Oral Argument
Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education 551 U.S. ___ (2007) Oyez: Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 551 U.S. ___ (2007), U.S. Supreme Court Case Summary & Oral Argument | |
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02-11-2009, 05:33 PM
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#7 | | Member
Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Ohio
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02-11-2009, 05:40 PM
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#8 | | New Member
Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 1
| I think they do
I think its pretty impossible to disregard race.
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02-11-2009, 07:59 PM
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#9 | | Super Moderator
Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: MN
Posts: 14,892
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Thanks, for the link, StitchInTime. That should be interesting reading.
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02-11-2009, 08:02 PM
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#10 | | Super Moderator
Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: MN
Posts: 14,892
| It's Easy to Disregard "Race," and I've Been Asked to Cherish People as Individuals
I'm a baby boomer, which is another way of saying that I'm a good bit older than most people who post on College Confidential. I distinctly remember the day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated--the most memorable day of early childhood for many people in my generation--and I remember the "long hot summer" and other events of the 1960s civil rights movement.
One early memory I have is of a second grade classmate (I still remember his name, which alas is just common enough that it is hard to Google him up) who moved back to Minnesota with his northern "white" parents after spending his early years in Alabama. He told me frightening stories about Ku Klux Klan violence to black people (the polite term in those days was "Negroes"), including killing babies, and I was very upset to hear about that kind of terrorism happening in the United States. He made me aware of a society in which people didn't all treat one another with decency and human compassion, unlike the only kind of society I was initially aware of from growing up where I did. So I followed subsequent news about the civil rights movement, including the activities of Martin Luther King, Jr. up to his assassination, with great interest.
It happens that I had a fifth-grade teacher, a typically pale, tall, and blonde Norwegian-American, who was a civil rights activist and who spent her summers in the south as a freedom rider. She used to tell our class about how she had to modify her car (by removing the dome light and adding a locking gas cap) so that Klan snipers couldn't shoot her as she opened her car door at night or put foreign substances into her gas tank. She has been a civil rights activist all her life, and when I Googled her a few years ago and regained acquaintance with her, I was not at all surprised to find that she is a member of the civil rights commission of the town where I grew up.
One day in fifth grade we had a guest speaker in our class, a young man who was then studying at St. Olaf College through the A Better Chance (ABC) affirmative action program. (To me, the term "affirmative action" still means active recruitment of underrepresented minority students, as it did in those days, and I have always thought that such programs are a very good idea, as some people have family connections to selective colleges, but many other people don't.) During that school year (1968-1969), there was a current controversy in the United States about whether the term "Negro" or "Afro-American" or "black" was most polite. So a girl in my class asked our visitor, "What do you want to be called, 'black' or 'Afro-American'?" His answer was, "I'd rather be called Henry." Henry's answer to my classmate's innocent question really got me thinking.
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02-12-2009, 06:37 PM
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#11 | | Member
Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Ohio
Posts: 468
| UC Board of Regents approves changes to UC's policy on undergraduate admission requirements Quote:
To give more students an opportunity to present their qualifications to UC campuses while continuing to provide a guarantee of admission to the highest-performing students, the University of California Board of Regents approved today (Feb. 5) changes to the university's requirements for freshman admission. The changes will take effect for the fall 2012 entering class.
The board's vote was unanimous with one abstention.
The new eligibility requirements, which are based on the recommendations made by UC's Academic Senate, will expand the opportunity to be considered for freshman admission to all California students who complete at least 11 of UC's 15 required college preparatory courses by the end of their junior year in high school, achieve a GPA of at least 3.0 (weighted with additional grade points for up to eight semesters of honors-level courses), and take either the ACT with Writing or the SAT Reasoning Examination.
California high school seniors who meet these requirements would be entitled to a full and comprehensive review of their applications at each UC campus to which they apply...
...The new requirements widen the door of opportunity for many more high-achieving students -- from all ethnic and racial groups as well as those from low-performing schools -- to be considered for admission to UC. Based on 2007 data from the California Postsecondary Education Commission, it is estimated that 21.7 percent of California high school graduates would be entitled to a full review of their applications compared with 13.4 percent of graduates estimated to be UC eligible in 2007.
"Broadening the pool of students who can undergo comprehensive review means that more qualified students will have the opportunity to be considered for admission to UC," Croughan said.
Although the proposal's impact on diversity is hard to predict with accuracy, UC's research suggests that if the proposal had been in place in 2007, the demographic characteristics of students in the guaranteed portion of the pool would remain roughly similar to those of the current pool, and in the larger entitled-to-review pool, both African American and Chicano-Latino students would increase as a proportion of the total. The raw numbers of students who are able to have their applications considered by UC campuses would increase substantially for all groups, as noted above. For more detailed information, see tables 1 and 2 in the Regents' item: www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/feb09/e2.pdf [On Pages 6 and 9]...
| From Table 2, Self-identified Ethnic Group current (C) vs. preliminary projection Low(pL) and High(pH) 2007-2008 admits under new policy:
African American...4%(C)...4%(pL)...5%(pH)
Chicano/Latino....19%(C)...19%(pL)...22%(pH)
Native American....1%(C)...<1%(pL)...<1%(pH)
Asian American....36%(C)...29%(pL)...32%(pH)
White................ 34%(C)...41%(pL)...44%(pH)
Other/Unknown.....6%(C)...2%(pL)...3%(pH)
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02-15-2009, 04:48 PM
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#12 | | Member
Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: New Jersey ---> Cornell '13
Posts: 744
| Are Minorities More Likely To Get Likely Letters?
I have heard this rumor, but I don't know if it's true. Any input?
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02-15-2009, 07:29 PM
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#13 | | Senior Member
Join Date: May 2007 Location: Harvard '13
Posts: 3,516
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nah...athletes are probably more likely to get likely letters (hehe...said 'likely' twice)
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02-15-2009, 08:04 PM
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#14 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: California
Posts: 232
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Actually, from what Ive heard, being a minority is definitely an advantage, especially if that minority is not well represented at the certain college. I have known a minority who got accepted to UCBerkeley with lower stats than another one of my friends, who is Asian (definitely no longer considered a minority at Berkeley). It is different for all schools though. You should check their undergraduate ethnicity breakdown.
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02-15-2009, 08:17 PM
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#15 | | Member
Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Tampa, Florida===> Cornell '13
Posts: 739
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^^ We know that they stand higher chances, OP wants to know if they get likely letters at a higher rate than non-URMs. Likely letters are essentially a letter from the college that is sent before the decisions are sent out saying that the student is "likely" to get in. In most cases they are an early acceptance letter.
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