Dive Brief:
- Multiple universities are destroying admissions records following student requests to see information about the schools’ reasons for accepting or denying their applications.
- The Chronicle of Higher Education reports Yale and Stanford have drawn the ire of advocacy groups suing Harvard, UNC-Chapel Hill, and UT-Austin for their race-conscious admissions policies.
- The universities have said they are reverting to what used to be standard, in part to keep the comments of faculty reviewers private, according to the Chronicle.
Dive Insight:
A number of universities have made clear commitments to creating a diverse student body rather than admitting only students with the highest test scores. The merits of considering race, one element of diversity, have been fiercely debated. Lawsuits are regularly brought by students arguing they are more “qualified” for admission than their accepted peers and admissions records are an important element of those cases. As the Yale Law School Dean of Admissions said in a statement to the Chronicle, however, candid input from faculty members could be compromised if they think the admissions records are likely to be shown to students. The practice of destroying such records has not been challenged in court directly, but it may be just a matter of time.