Crazy question, but do you think an applicant’s legal name has any bearing on college admissions, especially colleges that use “holistic” reviews. For example, let’s say that Cheyenne Dakota is applying to a college that is over represented by asian americans (25% of freshman class). All things equal, will the adcoms look more favorably to Cheyenne even though she is not listed as a Native American applicant?
It is unlikely to be an official aspect of consideration, if she did not check the box for Native American. Cheyenne is not being counted among their “we admitted 3 Native Americans this year” data if she did not acknowledge in writing that she is of Native American descent, and thus admitting her does not help their diversity effort.
But conceivably names could trigger an implicit bias, which could work either for or against the applicant. Could an admissions officer think more or less of someone with a first or last name that sounds like it belongs to a particular ethnicity? Or make certain assumptions about the person? Could this happen without the AO’s even being consciously aware of it? Maybe.
I think there have been studies about this with job applicants, people contacting realtors, etc. It happens.
No.
Yes, there have been matched pair studies of applying to jobs or rental housing with stereotypical “white” and “black” names on the resume or application.
Given the results of the above, it is possible that a college applicant’s name could trigger unconscious bias when an admission reader is making a subjective judgement on the application or part of it, even though college policy may be against any consideration of name.
Well if their last name is Bush, Obama, Jolie, Trump…