The Impact of Race-Neutral Admissions One Year Later
It’s fall and college students everywhere have settled into a new school year. Fall is also the time when colleges release demographic information about their incoming classes. Extra attention is on this year’s profile releases, as this is the first freshman class admitted since a 2023 SCOTUS decision mandated a race-neutral admission practice for all. (See our previous post on Changes in Admissions Since the SCOTUS Decision.)
The profiles released are showing shifts in demographics at some of the most selective colleges. Some colleges—MIT, Amherst College, and UNC Chapel Hill, for example—observed steep declines in their enrolling of Black, Indigenous, and Hispanic students. Others, including Tufts and Princeton, saw more subtle shifts or, in the case of Yale and Duke, hardly any shift at all.
What does this mean for the students researching or applying to colleges now?
- In the college search, we encourage researching campus culture. Diversity is a driver in many students’ college search and shifting campus demographics can influence a student’s sense of fit or belonging at a given school. It has become increasingly important that students ask themselves what they are looking for in terms of diversity. What kinds of diversity do they need to see on a prospective campus in order to ensure they feel that they belong there?
- In writing application essays, we encourage them to reflect on their identities. As college counselors, we continue to talk with students about their identities and how, if, and which identities they want to bring into their application. The new supplemental essay prompts many colleges added in 2023 asking students to reflect on their identities and backgrounds seem like they are here to stay and more colleges have followed suit. We are finding some students are reflecting meaningfully on their identities for the first time and are eager and empowered to engage these essays. But some students feel an uncomfortable pressure or expectation to talk about specific identities in these essays, while others struggle to land on an aspect of their lives that they feel fits these prompts and will also be compelling to readers. As students reflect on their identities in their applications, we encourage them to speak their truth. How does this impact the big picture of admissions?
- Ripple effects. The ripple effects of the court decision have been very real, with laws limiting or banning DEI efforts across higher education and beyond taking effect. Legacy admission (the practice of being affirmative in the admission process for children of alumni) is currently under significant scrutiny and multiple states have passed or are trying to pass laws to eliminate the practice.
- Highly selective schools are still highly selective. The schools impacted by the SCOTUS decision were mostly those admitting less than 10% of applicants, and those admission rates have not changed. This means that the most common admission decision given at highly selective schools is still a deny.
- Colleges continue to value diversity. In their mission statements and in their enrollment goals, these institutions’ values haven’t changed. Admission offices are thinking hard and creatively about their recruitment practices, financial aid policies, and more. Colleges are looking to campuses that have been using race-neutral admissions for years, yet still manage to increase diversity, for inspiration. For example, the University of California has had a race-neutral admissions process since the 1990s, yet just enrolled its most diverse class in history.
