Disparate Impacts of College Admissions Policies on Asian American Applicants

Introduction

For decades, questions have arisen regarding whether selective U.S. colleges discriminate against Asian American applicants in their admissions processes. Early audits by institutions like Brown and Stanford in the 1980s yielded mixed results, with Brown finding evidence of discrimination and Stanford unable to fully explain lower acceptance rates for Asian American applicants compared to white students with similar qualifications. A 1990 U.S. Department of Education report on Harvard found no evidence of a quota but noted that Asian American applicants were less likely to be admitted than white students with comparable academic achievements. This disparity largely vanished when recruited athletes and legacy applicants were excluded, suggesting these groups were prioritized. More recently, a 2023 Supreme Court decision ruled that Harvard's admissions practices involved unconstitutional racial balancing, capping the Asian American share of admitted students. Despite these historical concerns, third-party, applicant-level empirical analyses of potential discrimination against Asian American applicants have been limited, especially considering significant demographic shifts, such as the doubling of Asian American representation in K-12 public schools and a substantial drop in overall Harvard admission rates. These changes underscore the need to re-examine college admissions policies for potential disparate impacts.

This study analyzes 685,709 first-year college applications from 292,795 Asian American and white students to an 11-college subset of highly selective institutions, referred to as the "Ivy-11." These institutions are often included within the broader "Ivy-Plus" category. The "Ivy-Plus" set typically comprises the eight Ivy League universities plus other prestigious institutions like MIT, Duke, Chicago, Stanford, and Northwestern. Examining potential disparate impacts at these "Ivy-Plus" schools is particularly important, as their alumni are disproportionately represented in positions of power. For students admitted in the 2018-2019 cycle, these 13 "Ivy-Plus" colleges, including the "Ivy-11" studied here, reported yield rates between 54% and 82% and acceptance rates between 4.2% and 10.6%. The yield rate signifies the probability that an admitted student will ultimately enroll. To protect the confidentiality of the data provider, the precise institutions within the "Ivy-11" are not disclosed. The applications were submitted through a national postsecondary application platform across five cycles, from 2015-2016 to 2019-2020. The analysis excludes students who attended high schools outside the U.S. or reported primary citizenship outside the U.S., as well as students inferred to be recruited athletes.

Examining Attendance Disparities

To address the complexities of immigration and diverse experiences within the Asian American population, the analysis disaggregates data by three self-reported regions of origin: South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. While 3% of Asian applicants reported multiple regions of origin and were assigned one randomly, 2% who did not select a region were excluded. A key limitation of this study is its focus on attendance rather than admission decisions, as direct admissions data were unavailable. However, given the competitive financial aid and high yield rates of these institutions, disparities in enrollment are likely at least partially driven by disparities in admissions. The study focuses on aggregate patterns across the "Ivy-11" to preserve confidentiality.

The study first quantifies disparities in attendance after adjusting for academic and extracurricular achievements, traditional measures of merit. It estimates that South Asian applicants had 49% lower odds of attending an "Ivy-11" school compared to white applicants with similar test scores, GPAs, and extracurricular involvement. East Asian and Southeast Asian applicants faced an estimated 17% lower odds of attendance relative to similarly qualified white students. These gaps substantially narrowed when adjusting for geographic distribution and legacy status, indicating these factors influence attendance likelihood. However, the study acknowledges that not all application materials, such as essays and recommendations, were accessible, preventing a complete accounting of applicant qualifications.

Factors Influencing Attendance: Legacy and Geography

The research further explores how hypothetical admissions policies might alter the representation of Asian American and white students at "Ivy-11" colleges. Assuming admitted students enroll, a policy based solely on standardized test scores and extracurricular activities, while keeping the total number of enrolled Asian American and white students constant, would likely lead to substantial increases in South Asian and East Asian student enrollment, with Southeast Asian enrollment remaining similar. These findings align with existing studies suggesting that eliminating legacy preferences could increase Asian American enrollment.

Concerns about disparate impacts on Asian American students are often linked to affirmative action, but these issues are conceptually distinct. Institutions could have admitted Asian American applicants at rates comparable to similarly qualified white students while still prioritizing underrepresented groups. However, as of 2023, explicit racial preferences in admissions are no longer legal. This study, by analyzing hundreds of thousands of recent applications, expands on previous research in scale and scope. It is also among the first to document disparities across Asian subgroups, highlighting the diversity within this population, which is often viewed monolithically. The findings aim to inform the ongoing discussion on designing equitable college admissions policies and their resulting enrollment outcomes.

The analysis is based on application data from a national platform, including anonymized information on race, gender, test scores, GPA, extracurricular activities, high school characteristics, parental education and college attendance, and application fee waivers. SAT scores were converted to ACT equivalents for consistency. The study does not include student essays, letters of recommendation, or intended majors. Attendance outcomes were inferred by observing the high school counselor's transcript submission to a college, a practice typically required for enrollment. This inference method was validated against National Student Clearinghouse data, showing high precision (97%) and recall (91%), with comparable accuracy across racial groups. The study pool consists of 685,709 applications from 292,795 students to the "Ivy-11" colleges between 2015-2016 and 2019-2020, including Asian and white applicants from U.S. high schools, excluding potential athletic recruits. Within this pool, 36% of applicants identified as Asian, with specific breakdowns for East Asian (51%), Southeast Asian (15%), and South Asian (34%).

Quantifying Disparities and Their Drivers

Among applicants to the "Ivy-11" colleges, the study found that 16% of East Asian, 8% of Southeast Asian, and 10% of South Asian students ultimately attended these institutions, compared to 12% of white applicants. These aggregate rates do not account for differences in qualifications; for instance, Asian American applicants generally had higher standardized test scores than white applicants. Figure 1 illustrates that, with few exceptions, Asian American applicants attended at consistently lower rates than white applicants with comparable test scores, with the most significant gap observed for South Asian applicants. For example, among applicants with an ACT score of 34 (99th percentile), 16% of white applicants attended, versus 9% of South Asian applicants, a 43% relative gap.

Standardized test scores are only one factor in admissions. Other observable criteria include GPA, extracurricular activities, legacy status, and applicant's home state. To assess the influence of these factors, logistic regression models were employed. Table 1 presents the results, showing that after adjusting for academic preparation (test scores, GPA, AP scores), disparities persisted. Model 4, which also adjusted for extracurricular activities, and Model 5, which included gender and family characteristics like fee waivers, still showed substantial differences.

A significant reduction in estimated attendance disparities was observed in Model 7, which accounted for legacy status. Figure 2 highlights this, showing that applicants with legacy status were more than twice as likely to attend than non-legacy applicants with the same test scores. Crucially, white applicants were substantially more likely to have legacy status—approximately three times more likely than East Asian and Southeast Asian applicants, and almost six times more likely than South Asian students. This suggests that while attendance rates conditional on test scores and legacy status are similar across racial groups, white students disproportionately benefit from legacy status. The higher attendance rates for legacy applicants may stem from both higher admission rates and higher yield rates.

Figure 3 examines the relationship between attendance rates and geography. It displays the estimated attendance rate for non-legacy white applicants with high test scores (ACT-equivalent score of 32 or above) against the proportion of Asian American applicants from that state. The negatively sloped regression line indicates that states with a larger fraction of Asian American applicants tended to have lower estimated attendance rates for these high-achieving white applicants. This geographic trend persisted even when excluding California and disaggregating data to the high school level. Model 8 in Table 1, which adjusts for location alongside academic and extracurricular performance but not legacy status, suggests that these geographic preferences account for much of the attendance gap between white and Asian American applicants. Model 9, which includes all available covariates including legacy status and geography, shows the estimated attendance gap between Southeast Asian and white applicants largely disappearing. However, white applicants still had higher estimated odds of attendance than similarly situated East Asian and South Asian applicants, with the remaining disparities potentially attributable to unobserved factors like essays or interview assessments, or differential enrollment choices.

Hypothetical Admissions Scenarios

The study concludes by exploring hypothetical admissions policies and their impact on the representation of Asian American students. Assuming admitted students enroll, and holding the combined number of Asian American and white students constant, policies based solely on "top-k" scores or "random above threshold" scores, with or without extracurricular activity considerations, generally showed equal or increased shares of Asian American students compared to observed data. Even when incorporating constraints for maintaining the number of legacy students and state representation, the number of Asian American attendees under these hypothetical policies remained similar to or larger than the status quo.

Conclusion

Based on a large-scale analysis of applications to 11 highly selective colleges, this study finds that Asian American students were less likely to attend these institutions than white students with comparable academic and extracurricular qualifications. This disparity was particularly pronounced for South Asian applicants. The research suggests that much of this gap is attributable to geography and legacy status, with applicants from areas with fewer Asian residents and those with legacy status—disproportionately white—attending at higher rates. While the study acknowledges limitations such as the absence of complete application materials, the findings are consistent with reported disparities in admissions decisions at institutions like Harvard. The study emphasizes that the issues of disparate impacts on Asian American applicants and affirmative action are conceptually distinct, and that policies favoring legacy applicants appear to disadvantage Asian Americans and potentially other minority groups, with legacy status being concentrated among white applicants. The findings offer insights into past admissions choices and their consequences, and suggest re-evaluating legacy preferences as a potential avenue for achieving more equitable admissions processes and maintaining campus diversity, especially in the post-affirmative action era.