The College Fix

The Common Application will not ask applicants about their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The nonprofit board that governs the Common App, a general college application used by more than 400 schools, voted not to add the questions, proposed in the fall of 2010, after a member vote in January.

“Association policy is exclusively determined by the Association’s elected Board of Directors,” said Rob Killion, Executive Director of the Common Application. He said the decisions made by the board were unanimous.

In a letter sent out to all 414 member schools, the President of the Common Application, Chris Gruber, stated a number of reasons for the decision, including “discussion of the topic during [their] annual membership meeting,” a membership survey which received a 75% response rate, and an evaluation of “current member supplements to gauge the frequency of these questions.”

Some LGBT groups have advocated for strongly for the issue—and found the decision lacking.

“The Common Applications is an organization that is highly political with many religious colleges that it is concerned about losing if questions were added,” said Shane Windmeyer, Executive Director of Campus Pride, a LGBT group which has been advocating for the additional questions.

Windmeyer found the Common App’s research troubling and cited the fact that a question related to religious beliefs was added last year, and they never surveyed their membership. “Yet when they wanted to ask about LGBT, suddenly they have to survey their membership,” he said.

Killion said there was not a single major contributor to the decision, but that it was a combination of all of the above factors.

“We’ve actually received surprisingly little feedback, positive or negative,” said Killion. “Those that had strong feelings one way or another definitely made those views known prior to the decision.”

According to the Board of Directors’ Final Resolution, the Common Application will maintain its current sex question, which includes only male or female.  However, on the online version, students will be able to provide additional information about their sex or gender identity in the Additional Information section.

This addition, said Windmeyer, “is one of the things where they were trying to appease people.” It’s not a bad thing, he said, “but it’s far from being progressive.”

The Common Application also decided against adding a question about students’ sexual orientation.

In lieu of questions being on the actual Common Application form, colleges are allowed to request supplementary forms on which the questions can appear. Currently, only two schools have requested that gender identity questions be added to their supplements.

“Members are entirely in control of what questions they ask on their supplement—without restriction,” said Killion, as long as the questions are not already found on the Common Application and the questions do not violate National Association for College Admission Counseling ethical practices.

The final resolution on the decision states the Common Application should reevaluate both decisions later this decade, after again reviewing member supplement content, opinion, federal guidelines, and evolving cultural norms.

Stephanie Wang is a staff writer for the Michigan Review. She is a member of the Student Free Press Association.

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