On the morning of June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court was the last thing on my mind. In fact, at that time, I couldn’t have cared less about what the Court did. A friend from school was about to come over for a week, and, like a true Chinese parent, my mom insisted I clean every nook and cranny of the house in preparation. I complied––with great protest, of course––but midway through mopping the floor, I heard my mom.
“Come here! Somebody keeps texting you!” Curious, I picked up my phone, which I had left on the counter. The reason for those messages quickly became clear. All over the news, and all over my phone, was the headline, “Supreme Court Holds: Harvard and UNC admissions programs violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
That summer was the summer before my senior year of high school and before my class’s college application cycle. I would love to say that I spent that summer free of stress and looking forward to spending one last year with my high school friends. I did not. I was terrified of everything to do with the word college, and to compound matters, I went to high school at a small Massachusetts boarding school known as Groton.
Groton calls itself a “college-preparatory” school; in the traditional sense, it is. Students spend the majority of the school year living in dormitories away from home, and, while there are some differences, my Princeton experience thus far has been very similar to the four years I spent at Groton. However, with Groton’s “college-prep” label comes a lot of pressure––not only to go to a college but also to get into a selective one. Even Groton’s website adds to this pressure, boasting about its graduates’ high rates of admission to selective colleges.
It was no surprise when I returned to campus for Fall Term of my senior year that many conversations about college centered around affirmative action. As an Asian-American, one of the parties most affected by this decision, many of these conversations were deeply uncomfortable to be a part of. I often entertained thoughts that, if Asian-American college enrollment shot up after the next application cycle, we would be considered the sole beneficiaries of the Supreme Court ruling and that, in some way, any offer of admission I received would somehow be worth less.
The irony of this is not lost on me. For many years, students from communities that have benefited from affirmative action have been viewed in this exact way by far too many people. Nonetheless, when I began preparing my supplemental essays, specifically for Princeton, I saw the Admissions Office had added a new essay prompt this year that ended with, “What lessons have you learned in life thus far? What will your classmates learn from you? In short, how has your lived experience shaped you?” At 500 words, this singular supplemental essay nearly equaled the length of the rest of Princeton’s supplements. In our class’s discussions about affirmative action, we suspected that colleges would place an even greater emphasis on “lived experiences” so as to indirectly take race and identity into account. This essay seemed to confirm that fact, and as I sat down to write it, I couldn’t help but feel some pressure to seem “diverse.” At the time, I thought that if I wanted to get into a good college post-affirmative action, I had to emphasize my status as a minority.
Somehow, though, the diversity essay was perhaps the easiest to write out of all of Princeton’s supplements. Perhaps it was to be expected, because, like everyone, my lived experiences have dramatically impacted me. The memories I’ve made and lessons I’ve learned from playing hockey and going to a small boarding school in New England, both good and bad, are central to the person I am today, and all I had to do was put pen to paper and write about them. I didn’t have to put any extra effort into trying to seem racially diverse; just like every other applicant, I was unique, and while my ethnicity was certainly a facet of my identity, it was just one factor among the many that make me who I am.
Certainly, as an Asian American applying to college in the first post-affirmative action class, I felt more pressure to get into a school because a perceived disadvantage had been removed. But after admissions decisions, there was no “in spite of Affirmative Action” or “because of Affirmative Action.” For a few days after Ivy Day in the spring, the talk around Groton’s campus inevitably turns to college decision results. In previous years, I’ve overheard statements such as “Good for her. Couldn’t have been easy beating affirmative action like she did,” or, “Wow. Don’t get me wrong, he’s impressive, but being Black definitely helped, right?” This year there was none of that. It was refreshing. By not explicitly considering race, colleges removed the “in spite of/because of” that affirmative action created.
However, that’s not to say I don’t value living and learning with people with unique and diverse experiences and backgrounds. Groton was a small school, but even among its tiny student population of 380, 28 different states and 23 different countries were represented. Inside the classroom, my worldview was broadened through class discussions and collaborative problem-solving, and outside the classroom, during late-night dining hall runs and conversations, my peers have taught me so much. Indeed, some of the most valuable lessons I’ve taken from my high school education have come from my roommate, an international student from China; one of my best friends, who calls Egypt home; or my teammate, who makes the 14-hour flight between Seoul and Logan Airport every break.
Some feared that, by declaring affirmative action unconstitutional, the Supreme Court would take away this diversity of lived experiences that enhances the American college experience. Their fears weren’t unreasonable; I definitely wouldn’t want to go to college in a class with a thousand carbon copies of myself. But I don’t. As I’ve begun to settle into Princeton as a first-year student, I see the same diversity that made Groton so special to me. I’ve met students from all walks of life and learned all manner of things from each of them, and I know that, as I keep meeting more people, they’ll continue to broaden my horizons. When building the Great Class of 2028, Princeton’s admissions office was still able to maintain the diversity required for an enriching educational experience through essays and a holistic review of applications, but without the divisiveness that comes from elevating race and ethnicity over all other factors of lived experience.
Image credit: Fred Schilling
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