Coloring Admissions: 'A is for Admission'

By Michelle Hernandez | Wednesday, January 21, 1998

A is for Admission is a recently published 'insider's guide' that purports to detail the inner workings of the admissions offices of highly selective colleges in general and Dartmouth in particular. The book was written by Michelle Hernandez '89, a Dartmouth admissions officer until her departure last spring to teach secondary school. Hernandez has the following to say about affirmative action as currently practiced by colleges and universities, especially Dartmouth.

An Overview

'In my view, universities have conflated the rationale of three major goals: affirmative action, diversity, and equal opportunity. As a consequence, there is little principled application of these categories to students. One of the key objectives of affirmative action is to serve as a remedy for past or current discrimination against certain US-born citizens.

The historical rationale for affirmative action was based upon past discrimination against blacks, which placed them at an educational disadvantage and, as a consequence, at an economic disadvantage. Construed narrowly, even Hispanics and Native Americans would not fit under the rationale of the program (although Native Americans may have an equally compelling claim for recompense). Nevertheless, these two groups are treated as underrepresented minorities by the Ivy League.'

The Numbers Game

'My goal is not to indict the goals of affirmative action, equal opportunity, or diversity. However, it is important to distinguish the rhetoric of admission literature on minority admission and diversity from the practical implications for your chances of admission. In practice at the end of the year, an open set of numbers is reported to the public—the percentage of blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans in the entering class. If these numbers are high, the minority recruiting effort is deemed successful. But what happens if the numbers look a bit low at the end of the admissions season? Would it surprise you to learn that if the minority counts seem low, one way of boosting them is to give less weight to test scores and class rank than would be accorded to nonminority applicants.'

The Asian Barrier

'What about Asian-American applicants? For a school to receive federal aid, it must report the number of African-American students, Native American students, Hispanic students, and Asian American students. However, for affirmative action purposes, only the first there groups are counted. It's not that Asian Americans are not a minority in the United States: it is just that they are not underrepresented in Ivy League applicant pools. In fact, the Ivies get many Asian-American applicants so there is no problem with their being underrepresented and for this reason, do not receive a special minority tag. Even so, at Dartmouth their acceptance rate is usually a little bit higher than the overall rate of 20 percent. From the entering class of 1996 to the class of 2000, the acceptance rates for Asian-Americans has ranged from a high of 35.5 percent to a low of 22.4 percent. I suspect that even if Asian-Americans were underrepresented, the Ivies would not make a special category for them. The general stereotype seema to be that even if they come from a poor background at least it is one that emphasizes education.'

Admission Rates

'At Dartmouth, legacies are admitted at about a 40 percent rate...and their test scores and high school class rank are lower than the Dartmouth average. Recruited athletes are accepted at about a 60 percent rate, while black students are accepted at about a 50 percent rate, Hispanics at about a 25 percent rate and Native American at a rate of about 30 percent.'

The Final Tally

'In the case of a minority, officers are willing to trade off test scores for class rank—that is, they are willing to accept lower test scores if accompanied by superior class standing or higher test scores with inferior class standing. For white student without tags, modest test scores are not offset by superior class rank, except for cases involving extenuating socioeconomic circumstances. Both class rank and scores must simultaneously meet the tacit cutoffs for further consideration. When all is said and done, letters of recommendation, the interview, and other qualitative information are all factored into the decision....'

On Recruiting

'The bottom line is that the Ivies and other highly selective colleges are very concerned that their minority numbers might go down, so they are always actively recruiting students from these three minority groups. [Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans] All these colleges invite qualified minority students (the colleges screen them by looking at their transcripts and seeing if their AI or academic level is acceptable) to their campus on bus trips, invite them to campus if they are accepted, oftentimes paying for their transportation even if it means flying them to campus (Dartmouth in a typical year spends in excess of fifty thousand dollars to fly or bus accepted minority students to the campus in April so they can have the chance to experience a few days at the college) and do everything they can to matriculate these students so they are counted in the total minority numbers at the end of the year.

A Fight for the Few

'The difficulty is that many of the highly selective colleges end up fighting over a small number of qualified minority students, such as it becomes a Sisyphean task to enroll even a low number of minority students at each individual college. Every highly selective admissions office has a few staff members whose sole responsibility is minority recruitment. Even so, it is often an uphill battle to find the best minority students and get them to enroll.'

Coloring Admissions: 'A is for Admission'

Article Tools

Related Articles