Originally Emailed to the University Community on August 1, 2023
To the University community,
When we wrote in June about the Supreme Court’s decision about college admissions, we promised we would follow the law, evaluate the decision for its implications for our practices, and be back in touch with more information. Since then, leaders from across the University, including members of the Office of University Counsel, have provided input and guidance, and we write today with an update.
The Court has made it clear that colleges and universities may not consider race, for its own sake, in their admission decisions. In the same opinion, the Court also stated that schools are not prohibited “from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise,” provided this individual experience is “tied to that student’s unique ability to contribute to the university.” We will follow the law. We also will do everything within our legal authority to recruit and admit a class of students who are diverse across every possible dimension and to make every student feel welcome and included here at UVA. In light of all of these commitments, the University will follow these admission practices in all our schools and programs:
- First, we reaffirm our longstanding commitment to the success of our students and the excellence of our schools and programs. Our admission practices will continue to assess each candidate for their capacity to succeed academically at the University, and we will continue to offer admission only to candidates we believe to be academically qualified.
- Second, no one who assesses candidates for admission at UVA will have access to any self-disclosed “checkbox” information regarding the race or ethnicity of the candidates they are considering.
- Third, as it is legal for us to consider individual qualities that will contribute to the University, we will include an essay prompt on our Common Application for undergraduates and other relevant application forms that provides an opportunity for students to describe their experiences, including but not limited to their experiences of race or ethnicity, and the ways in which those experiences have shaped their abilities to contribute. To the extent a candidate’s race or ethnicity is disclosed through this process, that information only will be considered as it relates to that person’s unique ability as an individual to contribute to the University, and not on the basis of race or ethnicity alone.
The Court’s ruling did not extend to how colleges and universities may consider the children of their graduates, but it has given us the opportunity to clarify how we do so, and also to invite other candidates with personal or historic relationships with UVA to explain those relationships and why they matter. For that reason, we have added a prompt to our Common Application that encourages candidates to describe their relationship with the University and how those experiences have prepared them to contribute as individuals, in the same fashion as applicants will have the opportunity to describe how other experiences, including experiences of race or ethnicity, have shaped their individual abilities to contribute.
We hope this prompt will give all students—not only, for example, the children of our graduates, but also the descendants of ancestors who labored at the University, as well as those with other relationships—the chance to tell their unique stories. No one who assesses candidates for admission at UVA will have access to any self-disclosed “checkbox” information regarding the personal or historic relations to UVA of the candidates they are considering. We believe this approach is consistent with our efforts to treat all our candidates as individuals, in light of their capacity to advance our mission, and in the fullness of their humanity.
At the most basic level, our goal remains doing our best to understand each applicant as a person, and to evaluate the unique path that led them to apply to UVA. Understanding each story will enable us to offer admission to students who will thrive here and who will contribute to the experience of those around them. We remain committed to welcoming, in the words of our mission statement, “talented students from all walks of life,” and will continue to do our best to be a welcoming and inclusive community—one that values the unique gifts of our students and, above all, cares for them as individuals.
In the Common Application released today, prospective students will see these decisions reflected in the way we’ve invited them to share their individual stories. We look forward to getting to know them and to learning how they might contribute to the University.
Sincerely,
James E. Ryan
President
Ian Baucom
Executive Vice President and Provost