With the announcement of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action Monday, Ohio University administrators are confident OU' s system falls within the letter of the law.
The 5-4 ruling outlawed a point-based system at the University of Michigan that assigned 20 of a necessary 100 points to applicants from underrepresented minorities. But the court endorsed the use of race as a factor in admissions.
OU administrators said the university's system would be reevaluated, but it most likely would not change as a result of the ruling.
"We've never had that kind of (point-based) approach in admissions," said Kip Howard, OU director of admissions. "We're in fine shape; we don't have to change anything."
Howard said the university employs a set of academic guidelines when shaping the admissions process. For general admission to the university, students must be in the top 30 percent of their graduating class with a minimum 21 ACT or 990 SAT, or in the top 50 percent with a 23 ACT or 1060 SAT. Special guidelines apply for more exclusive colleges, such as business, communications and engineering.
But 20 to 25 percent of admission offers are extended to students who don't meet the academic guidelines.
Howard said in these cases, admissions officials take into account other factors, including race. Students also can get a boost if they went to a strong high school, if they are talented in athletics or the arts, or if they are children of alumni. Local students are the largest group admitted below the guidelines because OU is the only four-year university in the area.
"Each case is looked at individually," Howard said.
The ruling does not have as large an impact at OU because the school is not as selective as Michigan in its admissions. Schools most impacted by this decision would be those with acceptance rates below 50 percent, said Seppy Basili, vice president of Kaplan, Inc., an education services company, and a lawyer and college admissions expert.
OU is not trying to weed out large numbers of candidates in its admissions process, but Michigan has to be more selective. Howard said OU accepts about 78 percent of applicants overall and the university accepts 61 percent of black applicants and 80 percent of Hispanic applicants.
OU President Robert Glidden also said race-based policies were needed and justified to increase diversity.
"Diversity is difficult to achieve in a university situated such as we are in a rural area, and it is appropriate for us to make extraordinary efforts to attract African American or Hispanic students, for example," Glidden said in an e-mail message.
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