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One of the first questions you might encounter on your college application is a box asking you to provide information about your race and gender. You might be left wondering what universities and colleges actually do with the demographic information they collect on applications.
Michelle Purdy, assistant professor in education at Washington University in St. Louis, explains that the federal government began using racial categories to quantify diversity beginning in the 1960s and 70s. The need to collect data on race and gender stemmed from affirmative action policies, which were designed to ensure equal treatment of women and minority groups, to come out of the civil rights movement.
“Accounting for race and ethnicity became increasingly important in historically white colleges and universities, especially after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and as black college student activists pushed their colleges and universities to examine their admission policies, financial aid available for black students, the need for black studies programs, and more,” Purdy says.
Under affirmative action, universities have increasingly used race as a factor in college admissions, a practice that the Supreme Court has affirmed as recently as 2016. Affirmative action continues to be challenged though, most recently in a lawsuit against Harvard University. Against this background, deciding which race box to check—if at all—can be a complicated, and sometimes uncomfortable, question that speaks to the core of students’ identities.
Checking the Box is an Opportunity to Explore Who You Are
Checking the box can be especially challenging for students who feel that the choices provided don’t adequately capture who they are. Savanna Harper, who currently attends Tacoma Community College in Washington state, describes the conundrum she often faces as a biracial student. “I'm half black, half Mexican and some applications only let you pick one. I always have a tough time choosing between the two,” she explains. “There's not one [race] that I identify with more. For the most part I end up choosing African American because that's what I look like.”
She often thinks about which box would be most beneficial. “[Colleges] say they collect the information for research reasons or just to know who's going to the school, but I don’t know. I don't want my application to be looked at just because of my race, but it would also suck if I chose the ‘wrong one,’” Harper says.
Other students ask whether they should check the box for a race with which they don’t strongly identify. Purdy shared a story about a student who had not always identified as Native American but had utilized a scholarship for Native American students. Purdy met the student in a class she taught that explored privilege and oppression, which provided an opportunity for the student to explore parts of her identity she hadn’t previously considered.
“Students going to college may not have readily identified with a particular race [even] though it is part of their heritage,” she says. “But by checking that box I hope that they will accept what it means to identify as a person of color and to take the opportunity in college to explore that part of their identity and all the other parts, both the challenges and the strengths.”
Race Is Just One Factor Among Many
The important thing for students to understand, however, is that race is just one factor among many that colleges look at. “Race is a factor just as playing a stringed instrument in the orchestra or working 10 hours a week to help support the family is a factor,” explains Heath Einstein, dean of admissions at Texas Christian University (TCU).
College counselors and admissions officers stress that the main goal of using race as a factor is to build a diverse student body that represents the wider community.
“Keep in mind that the admission process looks at many, many pieces of information,” advises Ralph Figueroa, dean of guidance at Albuquerque Academy. “All that data is reviewed by a human being who uses their best judgment to decide who to admit and who to pass over. It is not a science. It is not always fair—fairness is not the point. Building a talented, diverse, and engaging community is the point.”
Admissions officials also add that affirmative action is not about giving preference to those less qualified simply because they belong to a certain race. Affirmative action was designed to address minorities’ unequal access to educational opportunities. Nearly 50 years after the first affirmative action policies were put into place, black, Latinx, and Native American students are among the least represented populations in higher education.
“Affirmative action doesn’t mean colleges are accepting less qualified students because of their race [or] ethnicity, it means that within a highly qualified group of applicants, a college may consider race [or] ethnicity in their selection process to ensure their student body features diversity, in multiple forms, and perspectives of students from a variety of backgrounds,” says Gary Clark, director of undergraduate admissions at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA).
Think About What ‘Checking the Box’ Means for You
While providing demographic data is optional on most applications, counselors and admissions officers encourage students to check all applicable boxes. Jay Rosner, testing consultant and executive director of the Princeton Review Foundation, adds that it’s important for students to fill out their racial information so institutions are able to have accurate information. “If we don't have that data, we can’t analyze and address racial disparities [and inequities],” he says.
Einstein suggests that students ask the colleges they are applying to about how they look at race. As a private institution, TCU does consider race in its admissions decisions. “In navigating the complex college admission process, students ought to ask any college that interests them if and how the school factors in race. TCU is up front with prospective families about the use of racial and ethnic identity in the admissions process,” he says.
Purdy similarly advises students to reflect on the history and legacy of their identities. “By ‘checking the race box’ you are contributing to national statistics about applications and you are letting each institution to which you apply know how you identify,” she says. “College and universities want to know how you identify because it helps them in constructing their classes and in understanding your story and educational background. Be yourself and understand how your story is part of a larger, complicated, unequal American story.”
