THEY DROPPED the bomb again. This time it's more powerful, more complete and just as explosive.
The reference is to the Center for Equal Opportunity's study released Feb. 22 that found black applicants have a substantial advantage in the admissions process when competing against white or Asian applicants. When the CEO released their report last year, the University criticized it as incomplete for failure to account for in-state residency and legacy. This year's report covered those areas. This year's rejoinder by the University is that the CEO didn't account for "subjective" factors, such as essays and activities.
Neither this year's report nor any future report ever will be perfect. But this year's response on the University's part is woefully inadequate.
The CEO is wrong to think that our admissions process, or any good admissions process, will be an objective merit meter. If it were, the admissions officers would not be at liberty to reject an applicant with a 1600 SAT composite, a Harvard acceptance letter, a 4.5 GPA and a big slate of activities, despite an extremely inane and arrogant essay, which proves him incompatible with our community.
Instead, the admissions office should act as a portfolio manager, treating applicants as potential assets, seeking to assemble the most fruitful of them. A principle of good portfolio management is diversify, diversify, diversify. This is why yours truly has no problem with the goal of diversity, but there is a problem when our admissions officers won't just come out and say it forthrightly.
Instead, Dean of Admissions John Blackburn talks about how every student who is accepted is qualified and how they are operating in a way consistent with the Board of Visitor's guidelines.
Yep. But what he really means is, "You're right already. We do consider race as a factor in admissions." And then what he should say is, "And we're not ashamed of it."
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Make no mistake, we do use race as a factor in admissions. If a black student scoring 90 points lower than a white student is on par in the admissions pool with that white student, and the only gap the University can think of is "subjective" stuff, then black applicants must be consistently outdoing their white neighbors on those essays and activities. If you apply to graduate school at the University, be sure to have your black friends read over your essays and activities - they just do it better, so much better that it routinely washes out a 90 point standardized test score disparity.
Give me a break. While it's possible that we will reject that student with a 1600 on his SAT, it's not something we do routinely. But the CEO's study reveals that we routinely judge black applicants more favorably on the basis of their activities and essays. Or more likely, we call the box they check indicating their race a "subjective" factor. In that case, we ought to commend the admissions office for its exemplary display of the honor code in being honest and forthright in all its dealings with the community, including its public statements. Talking about subjective factors, and really meaning something as objective as the checking of a box, no, that's not misleading.
The admissions office needs to come up with a better response to the CEO. They need to stop quibbling over facts or non-existent methodological problems with the study. They need to stop misleading the University community in defending its practices.
If they had the students and community in mind, they'd realize that we overwhelmingly desire diversity. In my personal dealings and discussions, I've found that valuing diversity is an issue on which we could reach near-consensus.
What this comes down to is that the CEO has presented some sound facts and stands by the position that race-based admissions is wrong. Instead of engaging the CEO on the bigger issue, the admissions office is dancing around the fact that they use race as a factor in admissions, which in the end is stupid, because it's a no-brainer that we do.
This column may seem a bit petulant, picky, even harsh to the admissions office. But I expect just a little more from people who are supposed to be smart, and who are supposed to judge the intelligence of those they are accepting and rejecting.
Is this too much to ask?
(Jeffrey Eisenberg is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. He can be reached at jeisenberg@cavalierdaily.com.)
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