Welcome! In addition to our regular newsletters, we wanted to discuss one of the more prescient matters in college admissions, race.
Currently, there are two Supreme Court cases on this year’s docket on the role of race in college admissions. Regardless of your stance on affirmative action, it is important to understand how race is applied in US-based college admissions.
Education Week provides an overview over the two Supreme Court cases that are on the docket
The Washington Post provides a view specifically on the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard
Regardless of the decision, the implication is significant. A change in how race is factored into undergraduate admissions can have downstream impact on K-12 programs for competitive magnet programs. It will also drive how academic profiles of applicants are ultimately reviewed by admissions officers.
According to the Brookings Institute, racial preference in admissions is much stronger at elite universities than it is outside of elite universities. The statistical difference between applicants of different races to a public university is significantly less than the statistical testing differences at school like Yale. That means that the impact of Supreme Court affirmative action decision is less likely to change who is admitted to a school like the University of Iowa than it is to make a difference at Columbia University.
What that impact will be is yet to be determined. For example, can a university achieve the same diversity goals through race-neutral admissions practices? If so, how students compete against each other in the application process may differ, even if the outcomes largely appear to be the same.
As a decision is made, we will provide analysis on the impact of that decision on the application process. Now to this week’s articles.
Weekly Reads
This week’s articles:
Interested in applying to Medical School? Here are 5 tips for high school students who may be premed.
Many colleges and universities are going test-blind or test optional, with different impacts to the applicant.
Niche sports are providing unique pathways to elite colleges, including the Ivy League