Affirmative Admissions

Kent State University values a diverse student body and staff. The University strives to increase diversity but not by using race as the determining factor as to whether or not a student is accepted into the university. Kent accepts a student based on their merit and not their race.

In the state of Ohio, Affirmative Action is a public policy regarding the equal opportunity acceptance of admission of all races and genders. In 2015, two public universities admitted to considering race. The schools did not say whether or not race was the deciding factor or not. Although affirmative action is in written Ohio law it’s not strictly enforced and racial quotas were banned in 1978.

Although affirmative action is a law the Ohio Board of Education said it did not enforce it in its schools. The Ohio BOE said enforcing any type of affirmative action is up to the individual schools.

Kent State University looks at a student’s GPA, ACT/SAT scores as well as their grade trends throughout high school but not the student’s race.
“Any student regardless of ethnic, race, gender who meets the academic criteria gets admitted,” said David Garcia, senior associate vice president for strategic enrollment management at Kent State.

 

Students want to be judged off of their merit. They say that they worked tirelessly on SATs and ACTs trying to get a high enough score to impress and admissions office. They don’t want something like their race to be a deciding factor. Students like Jasmine Crump and Claudia Apaestegui, two students who identify as minorities said they would just be a number or the person to help hit the quota of diverse students needed.
“It would hurt knowing that I only got into college based on my race and not my academics. I would be discouraged and also feel like no faculty or students would take me seriously,” said Jasmine Crump.

Nancy DellaVecchia, the executive director of admissions, said that race is not a deciding factor when it comes to admitting students. That the student’s academic merit is what is most important when it comes to admissions.

 

The fact that race isn’t a factor in admissions is not to say that Kent does not value diversity in its student body. Kent State has a student body comprised of 71.4% Caucasian students but is closely followed by 9.5% of the student body being international students. 8% are African-American and 3.1% identifying as Hispanic or Latino. While this doesn’t seem like much Kent says that 15% of its undergraduate students are minorities and it is one of the more diverse universities in Ohio.

The reason Kent is able to be so diverse is because of their outreach programs. While race isn’t a factor in admissions Kent does value a diverse student body and they show that through these programs. The school reaches out to areas where they would be able to get a more diverse student body through doing so. This is not an indication of Kent attempting to meet any goal or quota because they do not have one, they simply want have students of varying backgrounds to provide a rich cultural student body for students to thrive in. Garcia said that every year they try to increase the diversity of the freshman class.

 

In the era that is about inclusion and millennials who are actively speaking out against racism, the feeling of affirmative action is outdated to them.
“I have mixed feelings. I think it’s a great policy to allow minorities and women to have the same jobs and equal opportunities. I also think that sometimes it makes minorities feel like they only got the job because they are a person of color or woman and not because of the skills and abilities they have to offer.” said Jasmine Crump, a senior psychology major.

Other students are completely against it like Peyton Ipsaro, a Kent State Sophomore with Italian heritage studying human development and family studies who doesn’t think it’s fair that someone’s race is more important than their work ethic or grades. Other students are on the fence, believing that while it was started with good intentions it’s not needed as much in today’s society.
Claudia Apaestegui is a Peruvian Kent State sophomore studying early childhood education. She’s proud of her heritage and believes that diversity is very important. She’s one of the students on the fence about affirmative action being implemented in college admissions.Apaestegui believes that college should look at students as whole rather than pinpointing one thing about them. She claims that because she comes to college for an education she wants to be judged on her merit and merit alone, as do many students of color like Crump. She feels that affirmative action makes people of color believe that they may have only gotten admitted because of the need for a quota or for the school to be able to say that it’s diverse.

When asked if universities should do away with affirmative action the answer was a variation of no. Ipsaro believing that it should be gone, Apaestegui thinking that colleges should want diversity but not for quota’s sake and Crump believing that in the workplace it should stay to give minorities and women opportunities but that in college every student has the opportunity to an education regardless of race.

While race isn’t a determining factor in admissions, Kent State does take pride in its diverse student body and seeks to increase diversity every year. It still remains a question if affirmative action should be done away with completely since students are accepted based on merit but for now, Kent’s students are content with it so long as it doesn’t make them feel like their minds aren’t valued more than their race.