Eric Zuniga, Campus Carrier deputy news editor

While the Supreme Court’s decision to end affirmative action at colleges last summer has raised concerns about the representation of students of color in higher education, admissions officials at Berry are still expecting a diverse incoming class next year. 

The Supreme Court ruled last June that colleges could no longer use race as a determining factor in admissions decisions to create a more diverse student body, in a case brought by conservative advocacy group Students for Fair Admissions against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, two elite universities. 

The court’s decision required many highly selective universities to make major changes to their admissions policies. However, Berry did not have to substantially alter any of its admissions practices, according to Director of Admission Glenn Getchell. 

“We really didn’t change anything per se in terms of our actions as much as we did really home in the messaging on we want anybody that really wants to be at Berry to be here,” Getchell said. “We didn’t want the decision to keep people from even trying.”

Getchell said the Supreme Court’s decision initially sparked concerns that students of color would be less likely to apply to college this year out of fears that colleges would be less likely to admit them. Historically, diversity has decreased when colleges have dropped affirmative action policies, with the share of underrepresented students in the University of California system dropping by 12% when it ended affirmative action in 1996. 

However, data from the Common Application, a website which allows prospective students to apply to most of the country’s colleges, has indicated that more diverse students are applying this year. Overall, college applications are up 9% over last year, with the number of Black and Latino increasing students by 12% and 13%. Applications from low-income ZIP codes have increased by 12% as well. 

The same trends are being seen at Berry, according to Getchell. 

“The data is still out there in terms of students that apply and everything, and we’re not seeing any kind of drop-off,” Getchell said. “If they’re a person of color and they’ve indicated they are, we’re not seeing a decrease in our applicants or anything like that. I think what we’re doing is working.”

Though Berry has not maintained an explicit affirmative action policy, the college’s incoming classes have grown more diverse over the past few years. Last year, 37% of admitted students were identified as students of color, compared with just 20% in 2017. 

Getchell said that inclusive messaging to prospective students has been important in increasing diversity. 

“We’ve really hammered home on this idea of if this is where you want to be, Berry is going to do everything it can to help you belong, help you feel like you belong, but then also learn to engage with people that are different than us,” Getchell said. 

In Getchell’s view, the already welcoming attitude of Berry’s campus makes it easy for the Office of Admission to assure prospective students of color and their families. 

“The campus in general—we hear it all the time—is a very welcoming place,” Getchell said. “Generally speaking, when we do our events, we don’t have to do anything special to say, well this population of students is coming to this event, we’ve got to treat them differently than everybody else. The culture of Berry really does a lot of that work for us.”

Getchell credited much of this success to the Office of Diversity and Belonging’s Good Neighbor Culture initiatives. 

“The approach I’ve seen is trying to build a Good Neighbor Culture and making sure that we all learn to engage with one other,” Getchell said. “That’s a message we communicate to all of our families, but maybe it resonates differently or well with our students of color who are interested in coming to Berry.”

While the Supreme Court outlawed the use of race as factor in admitting individual students, the court permitted colleges to consider race and other attributes in other stages of the admission process. Some schools introduced scores that attempt to measure the socioeconomic adversity a student faced growing up, while others have expanded their outreach efforts to underserved communities. 

According to Getchell, Berry has not implemented adversity scores or expanded outreach to high schools with a majority of students of color since the decision. The college is maintaining its relationships with schools in underserved communities, however. 

“We’re trying to make sure we serve the needs of those schools,” Getchell said. 

Last summer, Berry’s Admission Office invited about 25 high school counselors from the Georgia College Advising Corps as part of the college’s outreach efforts. The counselors serve underrepresented communities in the Atlanta metropolitan area, according to Getchell. 

“They came on campus for a day and a half and we did some work with them and helped them see who Berry was,” Getchell said. “That will be something we continue to build on and try to get some good opportunities. Ultimately what you really want is students who are talented and could thrive at Berry, you want them to know that Berry would be a good option.”

Prospective students have also been adapting to the new rules of the college admission process. The Supreme Court in its decision allowed schools to consider mentions of race in students’ admission essays. According to a report in the New York Times, many students of color have taken the opportunity to refocus their essays on how race has shaped their personal identities.

Getchell said that while there has been a small increase in students using race as a theme in their essays, Berry will continue to judge these references in the context of a student’s whole story. 

“I would say that it’s maybe increased a little bit; it still doesn’t factor into a decision of a student that’s qualified to come to Berry or not,” Getchell said. “The essay in general still plays the same role, and what it does is it gives us a chance to better understand the student, but again, that’s irrespective of a student’s race.”

Although current numbers do not indicate a major drop in student diversity, the mismanaged launch of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) may have a significant effect on the makeup of next year’s incoming class. With no financial aid offers issued at this point, Getchell said the admission process is still uncertain. 

“There’s a little bit of challenge to know [where we are] right now because of the craziness of the FAFSA rollout,” Getchell said. “From an applicant standpoint we’re in a really good spot, but when it comes to seeing students deposit we’re just not in a place right now for any of us to make predictions if it’s going the way we hope it will.”