Should Race Be a Factor in College Admissions?

Should Race Be a Factor in College Admissions?

Have you ever been able to see both sides of an issue to the point that you could give a passionate argument for either side and still deny that you suffer from a split personality? 

There is a debate going on out there in the world of higher education.  It’s about race playing a factor in the college admissions process.  On the one hand, using race by itself is racist.  There’s no way someone’s race can automatically tell you anything about them.  On the other hand, some families of man have been treated unfairly and if society is trying to remedy that injustice, that is a good thing.

 

So, should colleges totally eliminate the use of race as admission consideration?  What should be the strategy employed by an applicant if mentioning their race gives them a disadvantage?

I heard of one case where an applicant to an Ivy League school was born in the USA to a mother who immigrated from Taiwan and an American father of Norwegian descent.  What does that make her when it’s time to check the “race” box?  Last time we looked, there is no category marked Taiwegian! She said she didn’t want to put down “Asian” because she had been told that there was discrimination against Asians in the application process.  Is that true? I checked around with the staff at ABC College Planning and no one here at this office knows of any evidence of that.  But when I asked a couple of Asian-American students about it, they nodded their heads vigorously and told me that it was absolutely true.  For years, many Asian-Americans have been convinced that it’s harder for them to get into the nation’s top colleges.

 

One study shows that Asian-American applicants meet the college admissions standards in far greater numbers than their 6% representation in the population would call for.  And yet they need test scores hundreds of points higher than applicants from other ethnic groups to have an equal chance of admission!  Then when you look at colleges who have race-blind admission policies you find hat they have DOUBLE the Asian percentage of some Ivy League schools.  Discrimination?  Looks like it to me.  Or is it “reverse” discrimination?  Not sure.

    

So that is why many applicants are just not checking any box?

The applicant we mentioned earlier who had a Tai mother and a Norwegian father had a last name that did not give away her ethnicity.  She is a member of HAPA, the Half-Asian People’s Association.  In high school she had a perfect 4.0 grade-point average and scored a whopping 2150 out of a possible 2400 on the SAT.  When she came to the “race” box, she wrote in the word “multiracial” on her application.  She figured that since college applications ask for parent information, they would figure it out anyway.

“A lot of Asians have perfect  SATs and perfect GPAs, so it’s hard to let them all in,” said one individual close to the admissions process.  Hmmmmm.  We can see both sides of that, but this is America.  Why should anyone be penalized for excellence?

What are your thoughts on race and college admissions? Does it matter?