Harvard appeared to have deliberately encouraged black applicants whose SAT scores were lower than 550 on any of the SAT subsections, according to the study. In 2007, for example, there were more black applicants with scores below 550 than above 640 — a pattern “not mirrored by other racial groups,” the report said.
The African-American applicants who were admitted “overwhelmingly” had math SAT scores over 640, while “virtually no admits” had scores under 550.
As recruiting changed and the number of applications rose, Harvard’s admission rates for African-American students declined steeply, and fell more in line with the rates for other racial groups, because many of the students in the expanded recruiting pool were hopelessly unqualified, the report said. Before 2003, black students were at least 70 percent more likely to be admitted than Asian-Americans, but by 2007, the two groups had similar admission rates.
The report connected the rise in black applicants to two events: Harvard’s introduction of a more generous financial aid program in early 2004, and the Supreme Court’s rulings in landmark affirmative action cases involving the University of Michigan, Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger, which were decided on the same day in 2003.
The authors said they could not be sure why Harvard had changed its recruiting practices around that time. But they speculated that the university may have been trying to balance out any sharp disparities in admissions rates across racial groups, in order to “downplay the magnitude of race-based preferences” and avoid future litigation.
At the Harvard trial, William Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions, offered his own reason for why the university had lowered its test-score cutoffs for recruiting African-American and Hispanic applicants. “It really comes down to the economic disadvantage,” he testified. “These are students who have less of an opportunity, on average at least, to prepare well and to do well on standardized testing.”
He said that Harvard was careful not to send out too many search letters, because it “could have a negative effect” by discouraging students who saw other people be rejected.
