Untested Admissions: Examining Changes in Application Behaviors and Student Demographics Under Test-Optional Policies

This study examines a diverse set of nearly 100 private institutions that adopted test-optional undergraduate admissions policies between 2005–2006 and 2015–2016. Using comparative interrupted time series analysis and difference-in-differences with matching, I find that test-optional policies were associated with a 3% to 4% increase in Pell Grant recipients, a 10% to 12% increase in first-time students from underrepresented racial/ethnic backgrounds, and a 6% to 8% increase in first-time enrollment of women. Overall, I do not detect clear evidence of changes in application volume or yield rate. Subgroup analyses suggest that these patterns were generally similar for both the more selective and the less selective institutions examined. These findings provide evidence regarding the potential—and the limitations—of using test-optional policies to improve equity in admissions.

How The Supreme Court Can Improve Educational Opportunities for African American and Hispanic Students by Ruling Against Harvard College’s Use of Race Data

Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard has not only exposed ways in which Harvard College’s admissions office unfairly assesses Asian American applicants, but it has also revealed that Harvard’s fixation on race per se can disadvantage the very African American and Hispanic students best positioned to bring instructive and underrepresented perspectives to the college. The facts show that Harvard’s “tips” and “one-pager” system values African American and Hispanic students for their ability to boost Harvard’s racial profile more than for their actual experiences confronting racial discrimination. This Comment explains how, by ruling against Harvard (and without overruling Grutter or Fisher II), the Court can force the college to adopt admissions policies that not only treat all applicants more fairly, but that more fully affirm African American and Hispanic applicants. This Comment also offers ways that a ruling against Harvard could benefit disadvantaged African American and Hispanic students at every grade level—whether or not they ever apply to Harvard.

Where are you From? Reframing Facilitated Admissions Policies in the Faculty of Health Sciences

Understanding that Indigenous learners can face specific barriers or challenges when pursuing higher education, schools and programs within McMaster’s Faculty of Health Sciences have facilitated admissions streams for Indigenous (First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) applicants. The intent of reframing admissions policies is to provide equitable access while aligning with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action, specifically Number 23. This work explores the development of an Indigenous-determined Facilitated Indigenous Admissions Program (FIAP), a self-identification policy that moves away from the politics of mathematical blood quantum to nationhood, community, and seeing the applicant as whole being. Further, it critiques (for example) medical school admissions as biased, in that they often replicate an elite and narrow segment of society. It also addresses how interpretations of decisions like Daniels v Canada, which speaks to the rights of Métis and non-status Indigenous peoples, are communicated or miscommunicated within emerging population groups in terms of rights and their potential relationship to admissions.

Under the Law: The legal battle over high school entrance exams

New York City has sought to revise the admissions policies at its eight selective schools so that these schools will be less segregated and better reflect the demographics of the boroughs where they are located. These efforts have led to a lawsuit alleging that the policies discriminate against Asian American students. Robert Kim discusses the arguments in the McAuliffe PTO v. de Blasio case and what it signifies for schools’ efforts to provide more access to advanced education.

Intergroup Threat and Heterosexual Cisgender Women’s Support for Policies Regarding the Admittance of Trans Women at a Women’s College

Although spaces once reserved for cisgender women are becoming increasingly accessible to trans women, few studies have examined cisgender women’s responses to such changes. Informed by social identity perspectives, we examined if heterosexual cisgender women’s reactions to two types of women’s college admissions policies pertaining to trans women depended on their appraisals of intergroup threat—or the degree to which they perceived trans women as a threat to cisgender women. Four-hundred-and-forty heterosexual cisgender women completed a measure of intergroup threat and then read 1 of 2 articles about a women’s college’s admissions policy (accept trans women vs. reject trans women). Following the article, they indicated their support for the policy they read about. Overall, participants were significantly more supportive of the admissions policy when it was framed as being inclusive of trans women. The effect of policy type on policy support was moderated by intergroup threat. Specifically, women who were not particularly threatened by trans women expressed significantly more policy support when the policy was described as being inclusive of trans women, rather than as exclusionary. Alternatively, highly threatened women were significantly more likely to show support when the policy was described in terms of excluding trans women.

Robots and Affirmative Choreographies

This chapter centers dance theater as an entry point into the relationship between race-based admissions policies (affirmative action) and dance-based articulations of racial agency. The chapter focuses on Pilipino culture nights (PCNs), student-produced annual performances that typically work to affirm a connection to the homeland through the performance of traditional folk forms. However, for Home (2000), a University of California–Berkeley PCN, the dancers and choreographers used hip-hop to emphasize U.S.-based cultural formations. While existing scholarship focuses on the “born again” mode of traditional folk dance within the culture night genre, the analysis centralizes Filipino American use of street dance styles (popping and robotic dancing). The configuration of these elements exaggerates ideologies of multiculturalism and post-raciality in an innovative response to the model minority stereotype.