Reprint from the Wisconsin State Journal, March 2, 2002Faculty members, students, and the general public finally have a better chance to understand how affirmative action and race/ethnic preferences affect minority student admission and enrollment at UW-Madison.
Several secrets of campus admission standards and processes emerge in a report from the Committee on Undergraduate Recruitment, Admission, and Financial Aid, scheduled for discussion at Monday‘s Faculty Senate meeting.
Among other things, the Committee report reprints the important but now-forgotten faculty-established minimum requirements for admission. It includes for the first time detailed information on the numbers of freshman applicants, admitted applicants, and enrolled applicants, classified by high school class rank, ACT score, and race/ethnicity. The report also examines the effectiveness of Plan 2008 in boosting minority enrollment.
Not mentioned is an important omission from the UW-Madison admissions-application brochure sent to thousands of potential applicants every year. This brochure (already famous for its doctored photo on the cover last year) lists only two of the three faculty-established, minimum requirements for admission; taking the ACT test, completing the required core academic courses in high school, and ranking in the upper half of their graduation class.
Not listed is high school class rank, the best single indicator of student success. Why omit this important requirement? Perhaps because publishing it would discourage many minority applicants from applying, particularly those with weaker academic backgrounds.
Once minority students with weaker academic backgrounds do apply, the Admissions Office does its upmost to admit them. In the report‘s detailed tables, systematic differences in admission rates for students of color emerge. For applicants in the top 20 percent of their high school class, the percentages admitted are almost identical. But, below that level, the gap in admission rates steadily increases. For applicants in the 70-79th high school class rank percentile, 83 percent of students of color applicants are admitted compared to 57 percent for white applicants; in the 50-59th high school class rank percentile, the percentages are 58 percent versis 9 percent.
These gaps reflect two different admission standards, one for white students and another lower standard for students of color.
The impact of preferential treatment for students of color shows up in the report‘s discussion of Plan 2008. In Fall 2000, 6.9% of Wisconsin high school senior students of color were eligible, having met two of the three minimum admission requirements, they ranked in top half of their class and took the ACT. By contrast, 8.4% of entering freshmen were students of color. In other words, students of color were already “over-represented.”
The report also identifies the loophole exploited by the Admissions Office to increase the number of minority students. Faculty legislation requires that “particular consideration” (whatever that means) be given to certain applicants who lack minimum qualifications if “they appear to have a “reasonable probability of success” (not defined). Among the groups singled out to receive “particular consideration” are minority applicants.
So, there it is. Discrimination in admission on the basis of race/ethnicity. But, what does “reasonable probability of success” mean? Using the six-year graduation rate as a standard, we find the graduation rate for students of color not meeting the two minimum requirements is 39 percent as compared to 55 percent for those who do meet these two minimum requirements. Does the Admissions Office really believe the 39 percent figure is high enough to represent what might be called a “reasonable probability of success”?
Why do UW-Madison officials persist in hiding what they are doing to expand student-of-color enrollment? Are they afraid that rolling back the cover of secrecy would dramatize the campus‘s unsuccessful, more than three-decade-long effort, to enroll a more diverse student population?
Report offers clues on UW racial admission policy
Reprint from the Wisconsin State Journal, March 2, 2002Faculty members, students, and the general public finally have a better chance to understand how affirmative action and race/ethnic preferences affect minority student admission and enrollment at UW-Madison.
Several secrets of campus admission standards and processes emerge in a report from the Committee on Undergraduate Recruitment, Admission, and Financial Aid, scheduled for discussion at Monday‘s Faculty Senate meeting.
Among other things, the Committee report reprints the important but now-forgotten faculty-established minimum requirements for admission. It includes for the first time detailed information on the numbers of freshman applicants, admitted applicants, and enrolled applicants, classified by high school class rank, ACT score, and race/ethnicity. The report also examines the effectiveness of Plan 2008 in boosting minority enrollment.
Not mentioned is an important omission from the UW-Madison admissions-application brochure sent to thousands of potential applicants every year. This brochure (already famous for its doctored photo on the cover last year) lists only two of the three faculty-established, minimum requirements for admission; taking the ACT test, completing the required core academic courses in high school, and ranking in the upper half of their graduation class.
Not listed is high school class rank, the best single indicator of student success. Why omit this important requirement? Perhaps because publishing it would discourage many minority applicants from applying, particularly those with weaker academic backgrounds.
Once minority students with weaker academic backgrounds do apply, the Admissions Office does its upmost to admit them. In the report‘s detailed tables, systematic differences in admission rates for students of color emerge. For applicants in the top 20 percent of their high school class, the percentages admitted are almost identical. But, below that level, the gap in admission rates steadily increases. For applicants in the 70-79th high school class rank percentile, 83 percent of students of color applicants are admitted compared to 57 percent for white applicants; in the 50-59th high school class rank percentile, the percentages are 58 percent versis 9 percent.
These gaps reflect two different admission standards, one for white students and another lower standard for students of color.
The impact of preferential treatment for students of color shows up in the report‘s discussion of Plan 2008. In Fall 2000, 6.9% of Wisconsin high school senior students of color were eligible, having met two of the three minimum admission requirements, they ranked in top half of their class and took the ACT. By contrast, 8.4% of entering freshmen were students of color. In other words, students of color were already “over-represented.”
The report also identifies the loophole exploited by the Admissions Office to increase the number of minority students. Faculty legislation requires that “particular consideration” (whatever that means) be given to certain applicants who lack minimum qualifications if “they appear to have a “reasonable probability of success” (not defined). Among the groups singled out to receive “particular consideration” are minority applicants.
So, there it is. Discrimination in admission on the basis of race/ethnicity. But, what does “reasonable probability of success” mean? Using the six-year graduation rate as a standard, we find the graduation rate for students of color not meeting the two minimum requirements is 39 percent as compared to 55 percent for those who do meet these two minimum requirements. Does the Admissions Office really believe the 39 percent figure is high enough to represent what might be called a “reasonable probability of success”?
Why do UW-Madison officials persist in hiding what they are doing to expand student-of-color enrollment? Are they afraid that rolling back the cover of secrecy would dramatize the campus‘s unsuccessful, more than three-decade-long effort, to enroll a more diverse student population?