A news study led by the University of Maryland has uncovered racial differences in the language used in and length of letters of recommendations on high school students’ college applications.
For their study, the authors analyzed over 600,000 letters of recommendation included in college applications submitted through the Common App for the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 admissions cycles. The research team examined each letter’s length and discussed topics, as well as the corresponding student’s test scores and demographics.
Related to race and ethnicity, Black and Latinx students received letters with fewer overall sentences than those received by White students. Furthermore, letters for Black and Latinx students had more sentences relating to their personal qualities and fewer sentences on topics such as intellectual promise, humanities, the arts, and athletics. Additionally, Black, American Indian, and Native Hawaiian students received fewer mentions on academic topics overall.
Even when comparing letters written by the same counselor, Black students’ letters had, on average, fewer sentences than the letters of their White peers. Notably, this difference was ameliorated when comparing students with similarly high test scores. While Black students were overall less likely to have sentences on intellectual promise, there was no difference in this area among the highest-performing students. However, racial differences among high-performing students were found relating to extracurricular activities and athletics, with Black and Latinx students having significantly fewer mentions of these topics in their recommendation letters.
“Given that the Supreme Court ruling limits how institutions may consider race/ethnicity in admissions decisions, but does not prevent them from ‘considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life,’ institutions must continue work to identify, recruit, and admit talented students from all backgrounds,” the authors write. “Holistic review processes must be leveraged to contextualize inequality in letters and other non-standardized components of the application, facilitating admissions decisions that identify talented students from a wide range of backgrounds.”
In addition to the University of Maryland, the research team included authors from the Common App, the University of Delaware, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Pennsylvania State University.
