Prejudice Process: Unveiling the Inequities in College Admissions

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For most of their educational career, students build up to college admissions: as a result, this process can stress or worry them the most. As students become upperclassmen, the logistics behind applying to college discourage and prevent many students from applying to their dream universities. Although many account for the costs of college tuition, they might not think about the application fees, standardized test prep costs, and the need to travel far for these tests, which all impact lots of students.  

With these issues in mind, one might think there should be a way to help youth deal with these disadvantages when they reach this crucial process in their young lives as college applicants. It turns out there are some ways to help with the cost: for example, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or “FAFSA”, and fee waivers for UC applications help to (do whatever it does for low-income students)  Although this might sound like a great solution for underprivileged students when looking into the details, we see gaps in the support offered, as the UC’s only allow their fee waivers to be applied to four UC campuses. So, although a student may dream of attending UCLA, an extremely selective university, they might have to make the difficult decision to apply their waivers to schools they have a higher likelihood of getting accepted to, extinguishing their chances of being admitted to their dream school and potentially stifling the ability to make the connections at such an illustrious institution.  Luckily for the School’s students, the director of the college counseling department, Tania Castro-Bradt, shares “Any Head-Royce student shouldn’t have a barrier to their application process because we actually already have it embedded in our budget to both identify those students, but also if a student comes to us and says ‘Hey – I might not be getting assistance but I feel like my family would benefit from a fee waiver’, we generally are like ‘OK let’s make it happen’, so again I think we work very closely with each individual student and family to make sure that’s not something that’s gonna get in the way of them applying to colleges.” Another point of importance in the discrepancies in higher education access is applying to colleges via early decision.  Early decision is a process that locks you into attending a college upon being admitted, which increases your chances of getting in by a large margin. Bradt says “For those families where cost isn’t a factor, and they can clearly identify a top choice school, then yes early decision is a strategic boost in the admissions process for them. A process to increase your likelihood of getting into one of your top schools early sounds amazing, but Castro-Bradt shares the reality that “[For] students [who] are very cost-conscious around their application process, whether it’s scholarship money, financial aid money, or just wanting to see the opportunity to see how these different packages pan out early decision is usually not in their best interests.”  This leaves many wondering whether early decision is arbitrary, and Castro-Bradt shares the same sentiment, “Fair? Not Fair? We could argue the merits of that, but that’s currently the way the game is set up.” College admissions certainly have a way to go before becoming perfectly equitable, especially with legacy admissions. CNN describes Legacy college admissions as “an advantage given at birth, in which the children of a school’s alumni receive special consideration in the college admissions rat race.” As college had been previously available to primarily wealthy white men, this allows a greater advantage to their offspring which generally leaves less room for diversity, creating a further divide in college admissions. Castro-Bradt poses the question, “Should these institutions be considering that your father, or your mother, or your grandparent went to this institution?” There is still hope as recently “Governor Newsom struck down legacy admissions in the state of California which means schools like USC and Stanford starting in the fall of 2025, can no longer use legacy admissions as part of their process.”  This change suggests a bright future with a more just college admissions process is to come, evoking great anticipation in the university class of 2030!