Race and geography warrant consideration in admissions

I am a product of affirmative action.

Note the lack of capitalization in this statement…. I am a product of affirmative action.

Note the lack of capitalization in this statement. Institutional Affirmative Action – using race as a contributing factor to college admissions – did not affect my application. When I took the SATs, I bubbled in the “chooses not to report race” circle.

Still, a factor I do not control gave me an advantage during the admissions process: being urban.

My guidance counselor – after reviewing my SAT scores, grades and class rank – told me that years of hard work were “nice, but what really matters us that [I] went to an urban high school.”

Initially I took offense. Admissions officers should have searched for what distinguished me from other applicants. They should look for my uniqueness, my individuality, my essence, the very me-ness of me.

Then I realized that I was being stupid. Why shouldn’t where I’m from factor into admissions? Geographic variety contributes to a college’s flavor and the picture it presents to the world.

I am an urban person. My parents and grandparents were urban people. I associate with urban people. When others meet me, they perceive that I am an urban person and treat me accordingly. I subscribe to urban culture, have urban thought processes and view the world through urban-colored glasses.

No one gave me a choice about my geography. I was never asked where I wanted to be born and to whom. Genetic circumstance determined my geography, nothing else. Even if I wanted to adopt a suburban persona, I couldn’t. The city crawled under my skin and refused to leave.

And, when compared to analogous students from the suburbs, I know my urban roots boosted my case.

Moreover, in this context, my counselor did not use urban as a euphemism for poor or disadvantaged. Being urban was an end unto itself, a distinctive mark that deemed me different from other applicants, a geographic minority.

Replace any “urban” in the previous paragraphs with a racial designation and off come the gloves. I concede that racial lines are less fluid than geographic ones. Nevertheless, race is a social construct, not a biological one. In the admissions marathon, race and geography shoulder much the same burden since they reflect not who people are, but what they are.

Affirmative action states that a person’s race, class and geography helped fashion them. Furthermore, in the interest of diversity, these factors should be allowed to distinguish them from other applicants. None of these can be the fulcrum on which the decision turns, but they can be a check in the plus column of potential students.

Controversy surrounding exactly what that positive mark means plagues affirmative action. I can’t know the extent to which my being urban affected my application, but I know that Pitt recruits constantly and favors those from out-of-state urban areas.

What people are does not dictate who they are, necessarily. Yet, denying part of people’s heritage denies that these traits contribute their experience.

My guidance counselor’s words, however blunt, were true. What I was made a tremendous contribution to who I was, and colleges took note. Affirmative action, the lower case version, should continue so that admissions officers can see their applicants in full, rather than simply as bullet points or career highlights.

Colleges should scour high schools for people who will create a heterogeneous student population, one that is racially, ethnically, economically and geographically diverse. For now, I’m content knowing that for one student at one college, the process worked.

Sydney Bergman can be reached at sbergman@pittnews.com.