Inside the world of US college applications as Supreme Court ruling has knock-on effect

The Supreme Court ruling on race could have a knock-on effect for discriminatory policies such as legacies

In the US, advising students on which university to apply to is a difficult job.

Not least because the process is so vast – each student can apply to as many higher education institutions as they like – but because there are also so many unwritten rules.

"I'd love to blow the whole thing up, but I don't think that’s going to happen,” says one college counsellor at an American high school, who does not want to be named for confidentiality reasons. “I don't think it's serving kids equally the way it could.”

Anti-affirmative action activists with the Asian American Coalition for Education protest outside the U.S. Supreme Court Building on June 29, 2023 in Washington, DC. In a 6-3 vote, Supreme Court Justices ruled that race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina are unconstitutional, setting precedent for affirmative action in other universities and colleges.

She is referring to advantages given to “legacy” students, whose parents or grandparents also attended the university they are applying to, and admissions procedures, which often bias in favour of students from wealthier backgrounds.

College admission has hit the headlines in the US numerous times in recent years.

Four years ago, 50 people were charged – and many of them jailed – in a college bribery scheme featuring A-list celebrities and wealthy business people who paid $25 million [£19.4m] to access elite universities for their children.

Then, earlier this year, the Supreme Court ruled against a diversity admissions policy known as affirmative action.

The conservative-majority lawmakers said the practices at Harvard University discriminated against Asian American applicants and at the University of North Carolina (UNC) against white and Asian American applicants, forcing higher education institutions to scrap policies in which they gave an advantage to black and indigenous students over those of races generally considered to be more privileged.

The college counsellor, who works to help students apply for university, points to the demographic of the University of California, which has already scrapped race-based admissions policies and has a higher proportion of white and Asian students.

“The fear is that Bipoc (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour) students are not going to get in at the same rate, because we are a country that was founded on racism,” says the counsellor. “Many students of colour, and Latino students have not had access to equal opportunities from the beginning.”

She said she believed one silver lining to the case, however, is that it could spell the end for other biases in university applications.

“Legacy” students, whose parents attended the institution where they are applying, traditionally have an advantage over pupils without a family link to the school. However, an increasing number of colleges are formally ditching that approach.

A study published this week by Harvard research group, Opportunity Insights, found “legacies” are slightly more qualified yet are four times as likely to get into top schools. The counsellor said she believed there would soon be court cases challenging the policy nationwide.

"I think that legacy admission will continue to drop off in coming years,” she said. “Especially after the Supreme Court case, because that identified one thing that can’t be considered in looking at a holistic admissions process and I would be very surprised if the next lawsuit isn't about legacy or something similar.

Six years after prestigious Baltimore university Johns Hopkins ended its legacy policy in 2014, university president Ronald J Daniels explained the system was “impairing our ability to educate qualified and promising students from all backgrounds and to help launch them up the social ladder”.

Writing in The Atlantic, he said: “We take sincere pride in the fact that so many of our graduates feel such a strong connection to their alma mater that, years later, they urge their own children to apply. But maintaining the long-standing tradition of affording such students a routine admissions advantage based solely on their parentage had come at a high cost.”

A report published by the New York Times this month found at Ivy League universities, one in six students had parents in the top 1 per cent of wealth. A separate study found for applicants with the same SAT or ACT score, children from families in the top 1 per cent were 34 per cent more likely to be admitted than the average applicant, and those from the top 0.1 per cent were more than twice as likely to get in.

"If you are super wealthy, that can tip the scales too, because college development offices want to admit somebody whose father is going to build a new stadium,” the counsellor said.

Dedicated college counsellors, who guide students through the process of applying for university, are themselves usually the domain of private schools and well-resourced state schools.

Those from state schools in less wealthy areas are not likely to have access to the service, which can cost up to $22,000 [£17,085] privately for a package that will guide a pupil through the entire process, from discussing options, editing essays and sending off their transcripts to their chosen colleges.

Some students apply for “early admission”, which means if they are accepted, they agree to withdraw all applications to other institutions. Anecdotally, an “early admission” application makes it statistically more likely for a student to get a place. Doing so, however, creates difficulties in applying for financial aid in a system where tuition at a private university can cost $50,000 [£38,828] a year. If a student from a lower income background withdraws from the bulk of their applications to take up early admission at an Ivy League school, but is then not granted financial aid, they may not be able to take up the place – and have potentially missed out on the opportunity to apply to a university which would give them financial assistance. This deters many lower-income students from applying at this stage.

The counsellor said those who were forced to apply without guidance could find themselves at a major disadvantage.

"If they don't have like someone like me, who can help them with the nuance of all this craziness, they're like ‘well, why would I apply early decision? I'll just wait and apply regular’,” she says. “But the reality is the admit rate – early decision versus regular is unbelievably significant.”

Universities’ sporting successes can also have a huge influence on how easy or difficult it is to get into a course. College football is hugely popular in the US and has spectators well beyond the student demographic.

The counsellor pointed to a drop in admissions rates – the proportion of students who apply and are accepted – of universities whose football teams achieve high level wins.

"If you're a division one football team, and you win the national championship, there's all of these things that are good that come to the university, like the right to merchandise and people flying in from across the world to go to your game,” she said.

"Then admission rates fall because American kids will see that the University of Alabama is on ESPN [and] want to go to that school too.”