Affirmative action ruling affects college essays on race
CHICAGO >> When the Supreme Court ended affirmative action, it left the college essay as one of few places where race can play a role in admissions decisions.
Yet the added weight of the college essay has fallen unevenly on students of color, who often feel pressure to exploit their hardships as they compete for a spot on campus. This year's senior class is the first in decades to navigate college admissions without affirmative action.
The Supreme Court upheld the practice in decisions going back to the 1970s, but this court's conservative supermajority said it is unconstitutional for colleges to give students extra weight because of their race alone.
When she started writing her college essay, Hillary Amofa told the story she thought admissions offices wanted to hear. About being the daughter of immigrants from Ghana and growing up in a small apartment in Chicago. About hardship and struggle.
Then she deleted it all. “I would just find myself kind of trauma-dumping,” said the 18-year-old senior at Lincoln Park High School in Chicago. “And I'm just like, this doesn't really say anything about me as a person.”
When the Supreme Court ended affirmative action in higher education, it left the college essay as one of few places where race can play a role in admissions decisions.
For many students of color, instantly more was riding on the already highstakes writing assignment. Some say they felt pressure to exploit their hardships as they competed for a spot on campus.
Amofa was just starting to think about her essay when the court issued its decision, and it left her with a wave of questions. Could she still write about her race? Could she be penalized for it? She wanted to tell colleges about her heritage but she didn't want to be defined by it.
In English class, Amofa and her classmates read sample essays that all seemed to focus on some trauma or hardship. It left her with the impression she had to write about her life's hardest moments to show how far she'd come. But she and some classmates wondered if their lives had been hard enough to catch the attention of admissions offices.
This year's senior class is the first in decades to navigate college admissions without affirmative action. The Supreme Court upheld the practice in decisions going back to the 1970s, but this court's conservative supermajority found it is unconstitutional for colleges to give students extra weight because of their race alone.
Still, the decision left room for race to play an indirect role: Chief Justice John Roberts wrote universities can still consider how an applicant's life was shaped by their race, “so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability.”
Scores of colleges responded with new essay prompts asking about students' backgrounds.
When Darrian Merritt started writing his essay, his first instinct was to write about events that led to him going to live with his grandmother as a child. Those were painful memories, but he thought they might play well at schools like Yale, Stanford and Vanderbilt.
“I feel like the admissions committee might expect a sob story or a tragic story,” said Merritt, a senior in Cleveland. “I wrestled with that a lot.”
Eventually he abandoned the idea and aimed for an essay that would stand out for its positivity.
Merritt wrote about a summer camp where he started to feel more comfortable in his own skin. He described embracing his personality and defying his tendency to please others. But the essay also reflects on his feelings of not being “Black enough” and getting made fun of for listening to “white people music.”