In the first MIT admissions test held after the U.S. Supreme Court abolished the “affirmative action” policy that favored non-white students in college admissions in June of last year, the number of black and Latino students decreased sharply, while the number of Asian students increased. The interpretation is that Asian students, who have traditionally shown strength in academic ability, have an advantage in entering prestigious universities as a result of selecting students based on ability without considering race.
According to the New York Times (NYT) on the 21st (local time), MIT announced that day, “Asian students accounted for almost half of the undergraduate students recruited for the class of 2028.” In the United States, class numbers are based on the expected year of graduation, not the year of admission. The undergraduate students of 2028 are the first students to enter college after the abolition of the affirmative action policy. MIT is the first major university in the United States to announce the racial composition of students selected after the abolition of the affirmative action policy.
According to MIT, the percentage of black, Latino, Native American, and Pacific Islander students in this year’s freshman class is 16%, down from 25% in recent years. By race, the percentage of black students decreased from 15% last year to 5% this year. During the same period, the percentage of Latino students also decreased from 16% to 11%. The percentage of white students was 37%, about the same as last year (38%). In contrast, the percentage of Asian students increased by 7 percentage points from 40% last year to 47% this year. “It is unfortunate that the Supreme Court decision last year has prevented MIT from maintaining the racial and ethnic diversity that we have achieved over the past several decades,” MIT President Sally Kornbluth said. “We do not know whether the decrease in admissions is due to fewer applications from minority students (excluding Asians) because we do not have access to race information in the admissions process,” MIT explained. “The fact that the decrease in admissions this time does not mean that students from racial groups who were not previously qualified were admitted.”
Previously, some Asian and white students had criticized the minority-preference policy, saying, “Because of racial considerations, their abilities are not properly evaluated.” In particular, they created an organization called “Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA)” and filed lawsuits against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, leading to the abolition of the minority-preference policy.
However, there is growing concern in the United States that racial diversity on college campuses is decreasing, especially at universities like MIT that require high-level academic ability in science and math. Schmill, MIT’s director of admissions, told the New York Times that “black and Hispanic students are less likely to attend high schools that teach (high-level) calculus, physics, and computer science,” and that “we need to make more efforts to reach out to students in these environments.” As affirmative action policies have been abolished in the United States, there are voices calling for reducing the weight of grades in college admissions to secure racial diversity.
New York = Correspondent Im Woo-sun [email protected]
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2024-08-22 22:45:31