Study Offers Mixed Assessment of Race-Conscious Admissions Policies
- Originally published in The Chronicle of Higher Education March 4, 2005
By PETER SCHMIDT
Race-conscious college-admissions policies often stigmatize black and Hispanic students as academically inferior, even though the students who gain entry through such policies generally perform better than others, according to a study presented here last week at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
The study was conducted by Douglas S. Massey, a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University, and Mary J. Fischer, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut.
The two researchers examined longitudinal student data from 28 selective colleges in an attempt to determine whether any evidence supported two of the most common criticisms of race-conscious admissions policies. Those are the "mismatch hypothesis," which holds that such policies result in the admission of students who find themselves in over their heads academically, and the "stereotype-threat hypothesis," which holds that such policies stigmatize all minority students as academically subpar, thereby placing them under a form of psychological pressure that undermines their academic performance.
The researchers sought to gauge how much weight each college gave to applicants' race or ethnicity by examining the difference between the average SAT scores of all students who enrolled as freshmen in the fall of 1999 and the average SAT scores of the black and Hispanic members of that entering class.
To try to measure how much of a role a particular student's race or ethnicity played in his or her admission, the researchers looked at the difference between that person's SAT score and the average for the entering class. (On average, black students' SAT scores were 131 points below the average for all students at the 28 colleges, while Hispanic students' SAT scores were 76 points below.)
The students in the study were tracked throughout college. The researchers monitored the students' grade-point averages, whether they left college by the end of their junior year, and how they responded to a survey asking about how happy they were at college.
The researchers sought to construct the study so that its findings would not be skewed by such variables as differences in self-esteem, parental income, and academic preparation for college. They did not, however, control for differences in students' choice of major.
Positives Outweigh Negatives
The study found that those black and Hispanic students who had seemed to get the biggest break in admission actually tended to have slightly higher grade-point averages than other students, and were much less likely than other students to leave college. Their level of satisfaction with college was about the same as that of other students.
"Affirmative-action programs don't set minority students up to fail," Mr. Massey said in an interview.
When all black and Hispanic students at an institution were examined collectively, however, evidence of "stereotype threat" emerged. The more a college used affirmative action, the lower were the grade-point averages of its minority students, and the more likely such students were to leave college and express dissatisfaction with their college experience.
The negative correlation between a college's commitment to affirmative action and the grade-point averages of its black and Hispanic students grew stronger the longer the students were in college, suggesting that the effects of "stereotype threat" mounted as the students became more accustomed to the campus culture.
Mr. Massey said that, on balance, the positive effects of affirmative action on minority students outweighed the negative. Moreover, he said, colleges have found ways to counter the effects of "stereotype threat," by, for example, hiring more minority faculty members.
The study has been submitted for publication in the journal Social Forces, published by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As of last week it was under review.