There are three realities that must be present in the debate on racial diversity in college admissions. 1) Racial diversity on a college campus is impossible without the use of race as criteria. 2) Not everyone who applies gets in, so colleges and universities will always have to use a set of preferences in choosing students to admit. Institutions need to acknowledge all of the preferences they use and articulate the benefits admitted students would bring to the institution. 3) Until individuals understand the difference between eligibility and admission there will always be an assumption that any student admitted over another student with higher scores was not qualified.
Until Americans have a working knowledge of how college admissions processes actually work there will always be only one side to the story, and diversity on public college campuses will be diminished.
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