jt1216, there are literally dozens of way for the admissions office to know one’s gender and ethnic background. Name, extra curricular activities, community essay, common app essay, main Michigan essay etc…What purpose do you think the community essay serves?
While it is certainly possible to keep one’s identity secret, under normal circumstances, the admissions office will know of one’s background through all of those responses mentioned above. Michigan’s admissions office is holistic. As such, it factors one’s background into the decision, which almost always includes one’s gender, identity or race. It is impossible to separate one’s identity from one’s application.
You re welcome to think that URM applicants have the same acceptance rate, academic record and standardized test scores as overrepresented applicants, or that female applicants to the college of engineering face the same odds as male applicants, but that would not be consistent with what I have observed over the years.