While filling out your college admission form, one of the first questions you might encounter is about your race and gender. This might leave you wondering what colleges and universities actually do with all this demographic information about the students, which needs to be filled out on the college application forms. We have the answer right here.
The tailored practice of considering students’ ethnicity and race is an essential part of the college application form. It is one of the best tools that most institutions have in order to promote diversity, ensuring that women and other minority groups are treated equally and get an equal chance to earn quality degrees, thus coming out of the civil rights movement.
Let us get into a few more details regarding affirmative action. Keep reading the article below.
What Is The History Behind Affirmative Action?
An assistant professor at the Washington University, Ms. Michelle Purdy, explained that the federal government began to eliminate racial discrimination among colleges and universities in the 70s and 80s, asking about the students’ race and gender on the application forms.
She further said that asking about ethnicity and race has become highly important in white colleges and other institutions, especially after the killing of Dr. Martin King Jr. The black students forced the authorities to revise their financial aid and admission policies for black students and other minorities.
Watch this video to learn more about racial differences:
Checking The Race Box Can Really Tell You Who You Are
Checking the race and ethnicity box on the form can be challenging for many students, as they think the choices in the document do not really capture who they are. For example, people who belong to two different races, half black and half something else, face a tough time choosing who they are, as some colleges allow only one box to check.
Therefore, Purdy thinks that checking the race box in college application forms will help students identify who they really are and the opportunities in the college that they can explore through their identity, which can be both their strengths and weaknesses.
The Race Is Just A Single Factor Out Of The Many
College authorities and counselors stress that the primary goal of asking college students their race and gender is for building a diverse student body that represents a much wider community, including women and minorities, rather than just white Americans.
However, the main thing to understand here is that asking about students’ race is just a single factor out of the many instruments in the orchestra. They must remember that all the student data is used to pass judgment, deciding whom to admit and whom to pass over. Thus, being fair is not the point here, but adding diversity to the student community is.
Wrapping Up
We would like to say that affirmative action does not only mean colleges accept less qualified students based on their race. In fact, the main goal of affirmative action is to consider race or ethnicity among highly skilled students to ensure that the student body offers diversity and people from different backgrounds.
However, mentioning your demographic data is optional in most college applications. Still, colleges mostly encourage students to check all these boxes so that the institutions have accurate information about the applicants.
