The majority of American universities accept the Common Application, a standard form applicants can fill out once (and stay up all night) and send off to dozens of schools. So it’d be a pretty big deal if the most-used college application started quizzing students on their sexual orientation.
But that’s exactly what the board behind the Common Application are thinking of doing, Inside Higher Ed says.
The Common Application has conducted a nonbinding survey of its members and — while not releasing results — has indicated that the membership is split. (The association’s board will decide the question.)
The current Common Application simply gives two choices — male or female — on gender. Common Application officials have stressed that they will continue to ask that question, and to specify that applicants should check the box consistent with their birth certificates. That’s because colleges use some of the demographic data collected to meet federal reporting requirements, and single-sex institutions need to know that applicants are eligible for admission.
On the issue of sexual orientation, one proposal under consideration would feature a drop-down menu that would let students select gay/lesbian, bisexual, straight/heterosexual or “another identity” that could be listed. Another approach — if the organization adds a question on sexual orientation — is to simply provide a free text field and ask the question about orientation.
On the issue of gender identity, the Common Application is considering options that would explain why the male/female question must be asked consistent with federal reporting requirements, but which would then go on to tell applicants that if there is a word that better describes their identity beyond male or female, they are welcome to add that.
It sounds like a responsible way to tackle the issue while giving applicants a voluntary way to describe themselves. And it’s certainly help out those schools, like UPenn, that are actively trying to recruit LGBT students; no more taking cues from “high school drama club” and “member of gay-straight alliance.”
Kevin
I know gay people are starting to come out earlier and earlier.. But are there that many gay youth coming out during high school to confidently select gay on their college applications?
Jacob
@Kevin: I’m with you, Kevin. In high school I thought I might be gay, but it took me two years of telling everyone at college that I was straight before I admitted I was gay. Beyond all that, though, this information should be totally irrelevant to admission.
Chris Robin
This is just ridiculous. Schools shouldn’t recruit students based on their race (like they do) or their sexual identity. Schools need to pick the best students based on their achievements; to do so for any reason is an insult to the student.
Lawrence
@Kevin:
Being only 21 Im not to sure about the kids in HS now. I know a couple people still in HS though, and they plan on coming out right after – which is what I did.
Ted B.
**shudder**
When I was of college-application age…saying that you were gay where IO went to college would get you expelled, and probably tunred into the police since “gay” made you a status-criminal liable for imprisonment or confinement.
PopSnap
Uh, no. Affirmative action is ridiculous; I’d rather students be judged on their academic, athletic, artistic, and leadership abilities than the color of their skin or whom they date/sleep with.
There are no “stupid” races. Only stupid people. And stupid people should NOT be going to college.
soakman
Ditto to Lawrence and I’ll be the ripe old age of 25 come October. It doesn’t sound like it is a field you have to fill out, but when it comes to placing you with a like-minded roommate, it has the potential to save a lot of grief.
Also, even if they did actively recruit GLBT students, there are so few of us comparatively, I’d almost guarantee that the 5 or 6 they want to find to fill their quota would have gotten in based on merit anyway.
I’m just not certain that I would specify even after having been out for 7ish years. It seems like a piece of information that could lead higher-ups to some confidentiality issues. Not everyone is ok with GLBT people. Who sees these forms? Housing? What if someone dumps you in the basement or in the room with the pee stain based on info that they don’t really need.
I like the idea of the old fashioned way where you get your roommates contact info, talk to them, tell them, and if they blow up then you ask for a new roommate.
soakman
By the way, I went to a private college with a student body of 1200 students. There were probably about 20-30 of us that were out. Insane.
Baxter
Why does a school need to know my sexual orientation (or my race for that matter)? Is that relevant to how well I’ll be able to do college level work?
s_b
Oh man, that would have terrified me back in the day. I wasn’t ready to come out, but I didn’t want to lie either. They should tread carefully…
Fitz
In the 80’s I went to a UC-school, and I was offered the chance to share that info for the purpose of dorm assignment.
It worked out for me– sorta. But it is way too young an age to really feel comfortable putting things down on paper. Plus– you know, we come in a lot of sizes and colors and flavors. The wannabe Euro Trash Art fag was NOT a good match with the wannabe hippie pot-smoking drum circle guy, though we became friends years latter.
Simon
I don’t think sexual orientation is really something they need to know, but allowing for non-binary and/or trans gender identification would be really, really great, particularly if that would then factor into appropriate housing and such.
Phil
@PopSnap: No, there aren’t stupid races, but there exist unfair circumstances, and that’s what affirmative action stands to correct. Yes, it does this through discrimination, but without this higher education would only be available to rich, white, bored males. So you can take your aristocratic values and shove back to the sixteenth century. I don’t believe that knowledge is a privilege to be dispensed to the poor when you elitist assholes think proper. It should be given to those who can use it best, and that includes the most intelligent of us AND the most in needing of education.
Baxter
@Phil: You may not realize this, but the vast majority of white men in this country are not rich.
curtainface
@Phil:
Beautiful post, Phil.
@Baxter:
White men carry the most privilege.
PopSnap
@Phil
I graduated from high school with a 3.1 accumulative GPA and a 24 ACT- nothing to laugh at. I was in marching band, on the newspaper staff, and volunteered for key club.
Do you know how much scholarship money that got me? ZERO DOLLARS. I had to go to an open-enrollment, 80% commuter school because I didn’t want to graduate in debt up to my eyeballs. Meanwhile, you think to tell me that some kid who did worse than I did deserves to get scholarships/entrance into better colleges JUST BECAUSE HE IS BLACK? I busted my ass for the grades I got, and I never had below a B in my entire life.
Why does the color of his skin entitle him to a better chance at an education than me? “To correct unfair circumstances” whatever. My ass. I wasn’t alive in the sixties. *I* wasn’t the one who passed bullshit laws saying blacks couldn’t drink from the same water fountain as me. I do not deserve to be discriminated against just because bigots of my own skin color chose to do so, like so many of those same people are doing against me today.
But I would never expect “better” treatment because I’m gay. NEVER. Only equal treatment. Affirmative action is not equal, it is judging someone by an attribute they cannot help. So which is it? To judge or not to judge?
Phil
@Baxter: You may not realize this but that is not what I said. (See, I can be a condescending jackass too.)
@PopSnap: Boo hoo for you. Guess the black kids should just get used to living in the ghetto then, hunh? I’ll tell you why black kids get more assistance than you when colleges consider acceptance and aid. Because they need it more.
Minority students do not get into college solely by the merit of their skin. Don’t assume that THEY do not work their asses off to achieve what they can, even if it DOESN’T measure up to you. They worked hard in an environment where it’s difficult to advance, in poverty and in institutionalized racism. There is a reason suburban schools can afford to pay teachers less: the best teachers do not want to work with inner-city kids. So forgive me if I don’t find your accomplishments all that impressive given all the advantages you have.
Oh, and as long as we’re sharing anecdotal evidence, I had a 3.5 GPA and a 2050 sat, with 1450 combined Reading/Math scores, and I still go to community college because my I’m Asian and I can’t afford a four year because, lol, the schools already have enough Asians in them. So don’t complain to be about discrimination. I still stand by affirmative action because I understand that making higher education available to both the most qualified AND most in need of higher education benefits us all, even if it does hurt mediocre students like you and me behind.
Phil
Oh, yes, affirmative action is by its very nature discriminatory. But that word has been given a bad rap because of poor connotation, similarly to socialist. Discrimination is NOT inherently evil. I discriminate between what I’ll put inside me, for example. Penises, yes. Clay? Poisons? No. Affirmative action may not be the best example of this, considering it’s still racism, but I prefer this lighter shade of gray to that darker shade of it. We do not live in a perfect world where everything is fair and I will not operate under the illusion of one.
Phil
Oh god I said Pen** and now I’ve been flagged. This may double post.
Oh, yes, affirmative action is by its very nature discriminatory. But that word has been given a bad rap because of poor connotation, similarly to socialist. Discrimination is NOT inherently evil. I discriminate between what I’ll put inside me, for example. Dicks, yes. Clay? Poisons? No. Affirmative action may not be the best example of this, considering it’s still racism, but I prefer this lighter shade of gray to that darker shade of it. We do not live in a perfect world where everything is fair and I will not operate under the illusion of one.
Read more: http://www.queerty.com/is-it-time-college-applicants-are-asked-to-voluntarily-share-their-sexuality-20100813/#ixzz0wZUxjd8X
Michael
Quotas perhaps? Federal funding to education has a funny way of using demographics.
Steve
When I was a senior in high school, I wanted my staunch Methodist parents to pay for my college. I knew (or, sincerely believed) that they would throw me out of the house if they found out. So I carefully avoided telling them until after I finished college.
For most students, the parents are involved in preparing the college applications. They at least review and check, to help their kid avoid making mistakes.
Colleges want to have a “diverse” population of students, and so might legitimately want to use sexual orientation as a diversity factor. It is right to do so, but only if it does not harm the students in the process. So, the right way to ask this question is with assurance that the answer will remain confidential, especially from parents. At the very least, the question should be optional. And, the optional personal/confidential question should not be printed or displayed for review, even if it is answered.
PopSnap
@Phil
*bangs head on desk*
You are missing the point entirely. The black kids in the ghetto have nothing to do with me & my personal ability to succeed. Zip. Zero. Zilch. I would have NO problem with somebody who goes above & beyond their unfortunate circumstances getting a scholarship- but it must be EQUAL OPPORTUNITY. Affirmative action IS NOT EQUAL.
Not all black kids live in the ghetto, by the way, and the ones that do AND get out of there are very successful people who would have been successful even if they were white and upper-class. Do you see what I am saying? Affirmative action is wholly unneeded. I, too, would have gotten the same grades had my parents not been engineers and instead worked at McDonalds. They have never once helped me with any schoolwork since I was in grade school. NOT ONCE. They were much too busy with their own jobs, and my brothers who were very involved with sports. It is not fair at all that a black kid with the same grades as me who put in the exact same amount of effort gets MORE scholarship money than I do! I have aspirations & dreams, too. Just because I wasn’t some underdog growing up in the hood doesn’t mean that I don’t deserve an equal shot at reaching them. I would love to leave small town Ohio and meet new gay people, even if it’s just a move to Cleveland or Columbus. That’s my goal right now, and I am afraid I will be stuck here because the college I’m going to (Youngstown State) only holds serious weight in this area.
I’ll end it here. I’m a libertarian and you are obviously very liberal, so we will never see eye-to-eye on this issue.
Robert
@Kevin, @Jacob, etc:
I know gay people are starting to come out earlier and earlier.. But are there that many gay youth coming out during high school to confidently select gay on their college applications?
Good grief, I sure hope so! (except that I can’t really believe this is something the college needs to know, if the applicant thinks it’s relevant…) I used it myself in my 1985 application to Reed College and started that fall :-)…. but still without the single room that was the real prize I was after 🙁
(But like we always said, everyone gets in to Reed, so I guess I could afford to go for the gold)
Robert
@Kevin, @Jacob, etc:
“I know gay people are starting to come out earlier and earlier.. But are there that many gay youth coming out during high school to confidently select gay on their college applications?”
Good grief, I sure hope so! (except that I can’t really believe this is something the college needs to know, if the applicant thinks it’s relevant I hope they put it in…) I used it myself in my 1985 application to Reed College and started that fall :-)…. but still without the single room that was the real prize I was after 🙁
But like we always said, everyone gets in to Reed, so I guess I could afford to put it out there. Besides, all those guys that were happy to let me be class fag and then come out after high school – you know who you are – were exactly who we all knew they were anyway. In other words, few if any of us ever really fool anyone 🙂
Oh sh*t, forgive me but I’m about to get on my soapbox:
FOR CHRIST’S SAKE PEOPLE GET OUT OF THE F#%!^NG CLOSET!!!
PopSnap
@Robert
I am an 18 year old who came out when I was in 8th grade, in about 2005 (I think). I know hundreds of other out gay teens around my area. Trust me, most kids in the 15-20 age range don’t care. It’s not that teens now a days are necessarily a bunch of pro-gay liberal activists; it’s that they simply don’t give a shit who somebody dates or what the person is like just as long as they treat them with respect.
I can’t say bullies/d-bags don’t exist, but they are few and far between.
Phil
@PopSnap: No, you don’t seem to understand that You. Would. NOT. Succeed as much in different circumstances. The fact that your parents are engineers means that you live in a more affluent neighborhood which means that your school gets funded more through LOCAL property taxes, and coupled with the fact that affluent schools pay their teachers LESS because more able teachers are willing to teach in affluent areas than less means that your schools spend more on services and learning tools.
THAT. IS. NOT. EQUAL. OPPORTUNITY.
I will admit, affirmative action is discriminatory but hey, discrimination is as evil as socialism. Which is to say none at all, considering I discriminate between what foods I eat and what company I keep. It may not be a perfect solution, but I prefer to not operate in a perfect fantasy world.
Lucas
@Steve:
I completely agree with your observation that most of the time, parents will look over the application. Thus, the only people who would check the “gay” box are the ones who are out to their parents.
Thus, if the purpose of this were affirmative action, the only “gays” they’d see would be the ones in (relatively) accepting environments, precisely the ones who don’t need any help.