The acceptance rates for black applicants at 14 of the nation's top-30 rated universities --including the University -- were significantly higher than for white applicants in 2005, according to a report by the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education released Tuesday.
The report also indicated that at universities with colorblind admissions, such as the University of California-Berkeley and the University of California-Los Angeles, "the black student acceptance rate was significantly below the rate for whites."
The University's acceptance rate for black applicants was 58 percent, the reported stated, while the overall rate was 37 percent.
The release cautioned against assuming that the increased percentage means a lowering of admission standards for black students by suggesting that "a particular college or university with a high black student acceptance rate may simply have had an outstanding pool of African-American applicants."
According to a written statement by JBHE Managing Editor Bruce Slater, "While there are standard concerns that racial conservatives on faculties and among alumni and trustees may interpret the figures as showing a so-called 'dumbing-down' of academic standards as in favor of unqualified blacks in favor of more qualified whites, the percentage is a strong gauge of the institution's commitment to diversity."
Some University faculty members agreed that the statistics speak well of the University's admissions process.
"You have to attribute that high-yield rate to the excellent job that the Office of Admission has done this past year," African-American Affairs Dean M. Rick Turner said. "They were on a special mission to really cull the country, enticing the very, very best African-American students to come to the University of Virginia," after the low enrollment of black students in the previous two years.
Turner said there was a more concerted effort to reach out to parents this year.
"[We] let mothers know that there's an office at the University of Virginia that's going to shower love on their children," Turner said.
The University "lays out the red carpet" for prospective African-American students, Turner said.
According to Chief Officer for Diversity and Equity William Harvey, the University should maintain affirmative action as both an asset to learning and a means of righting the historical wrongs of segregation. "Affirmative action as a tool enhances learning environment," Harvey said.
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