Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and University of North Carolina et al will radically reshape college admissions.  For high school guidance counselors, no matter how you may feel about Affirmative Action, Roberts did the public a great service by explaining, in explicit detail, how holistic college admissions works in practice. 

Especially for competitive colleges in the post-pandemic world of test-optional admissions, “personal factors” like “maturity, integrity, leadership, kindness, and courage” matter much more.  When these qualitative factors are weighed alongside quantitative factors like test scores and GPA, a student's personal story and identity takes on added importance.  In the Chief Justice’s view, this is where the Constitutional issue arises.

Roberts steps us through the First Read Process, where admissions officers spend about twenty minutes per application, assigning numbers to “academic performance,” “extracurricular involvement,” “essay quality,” “student background,” and “personal factors.”  The Reader makes a recommendation, defended by a comment on the overall application.  Then the application goes to a “School Group Review” by a committee of experienced admissions officers, who review the First Readers’ recommendations–in addition to other factors like race and ethnicity, legacy status, recruited athlete status, financial aid eligibility, state residency, “special recruits,” and other factors decided by university policy.

In the Court’s view, this consideration of race–even as one of many factors–violates the Constitution.  Chief Justice Roberts enshrines the principle of the “Color Blind Constitution” in college admissions, that “diversity” is impossible to define, not measurable by a coherent standard, an impermissibly permanent mandate, and a stereotyping of students.  So, whatever the educational benefits of diversity might be, they are “commendable goals” but insufficient for Equal Protection. 

However, there is one extremely important takeaway for high school counselors that should be integrated into their student guidance. The Court holds that “nothing prohibits” admissions from considering a student’s discussion of how their race affects their life,  ”so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university.”

In other words, the Supreme Court allows that holistic college applications are truly holistic–if students are able to make connections across their application.  For a student to write about their racial identity, it “must be tied to that student’s courage and determination.” (emphasis by Chief Justice Roberts).  Likewise, a student’s discussion of their “heritage or culture” “must be tied to that student’s unique ability to contribute to the university.”  This isn't just good advice for Students of Color:  It's great advice for all students.

So, students need to understand how to tie their experiences to discussions of identity–otherwise, a college would violate Equal Protection by not considering them as an individual, but only on the basis of their identity.  This point, on the final page of the Chief Justice’s binding opinion, has profound implications for how guidance counselors need to advise students on completing all parts of the college application–even beyond the “College Essay.”  It also raises issues about letters of recommendations, the student’s statements accompanying portfolios of their work, interviews and college visits, and more.

At Storyboards College Admissions Portfolios, our background in college admissions and civil rights in education law has prepared us to help you navigate this new world.  We’ve been working for two years on this, presenting all over the country on what the Court would rule and how to prepare high schools for this moment.  These principles are baked into our college admissions platform, and we’re ready to support schools in adapting to these new practices in college admissions. 

If you’d like to know more about how Storyboards can help you help your students, please reach out to us!