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Rehema Nshatsi
Emilia Grant
UWRT 1102
February 11th, 2015

Is It Really Racism?
You would think that all it took to get into college would be how well you
performed in high school academically rather than the color of your skin. Well Abigail
Fisher is not the first person to argue that her grades and test scores would have admitted
her to a university if she were Black or Latino, according to John McWhorters article
Rethinking Affirmative Action At Colleges. I myself once felt and thought the same
way Abigail did, except the roles were reversed. I believed that I wouldve been admitted
if the color of my skin were white.
The three years I spent in high school leading up to my senior year, I was
preparing for my college applications. I was told colleges focus so much on your GPA,
class rank, and standardized test scores. According to the article What Matters Most to
Colleges (Collegedata), the people at the admissions office of most colleges tend to look
at the grades the applicant received throughout high school and whether or not they
challenged themselves by taking higher level courses; this would be including AP and
honors classes, along with college prep courses, and how well they performed in them.
Commitment to extracurricular activities, letters of recommendation, and essay responses
are also key factors that colleges look for during the application process (Collegedata).
So when I was applying I made sure I highlighted all my achievements, all the
sports and clubs I have ever participated in, as well as my academic performance. I

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wanted the people at the college admissions offices to see how great of an attribute I
would be to their school. Honestly, I never would have thought that the color of my skin
would affect the chances of me getting into a college.
I was rejected from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington for the fall of
2014. UNCW is a good school and has gotten more competitive as the years go on. I
knew that people would be rejected from schools because universities cannot accept
everyone, but honestly I didnt expect to be one of those people. I dont mean to sound
cocky, but for the grades I made and all the extracurricular activities Ive participated in
and having a unique family background, I was pretty confident that my application would
have been very appealing to the person who would review it. Along with hearing
Rehema you have nothing to worry about, colleges have to admit you, youre black!
from my fellow peers, gave me a sense of security that schools were not going to turn me
down. I knew my friends would say it jokingly, but I actually believed them.
According to the article Does Affirmative Action Still Exist in College
Admissions? it is believed that admissions committees are more interested in building a
certain breed of diversity in each freshman class. This is why most blacks and Latinos are
accepted to highly selective universities. If this was true then why was I rejected? That
was the question I not only asked myself, but my family, my peers and my teachers. Even
my assistant principal pondered the reason as to why I was not admitted. One of the first
responses I got from one of my friends after I told them I was rejected was UNCW is
racist! I asked myself is it really racism or did I really not meet there qualifications?
So I did a little statistical research on the admissions rate for UNCW, and what
scores they are looking for in applicants. They are looking for students whose GPA range

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is between a 3.8- 4.43 weighted, and the minimum they will accept is a 2.3. They look for
applicants whose math SAT scores range from 1130- 1250, or have a composite ACT
score between 24 and 28. They have a 56% acceptance rate with majority of them being
female and in-state because they only accept 14% out-of-state. UNC Wilmington is a
predominately White school, with 80.21% of their students being of this ethnicity, 6.31%
being Black, 4.85% are Latino, and the other .0863% are either Asian, Pacific Islander,
Indian, or Mixed.
A friend of mine was also rejected from UNCW and she is Latino. Her SAT
scores and GPA met the requirements, and most people would have agreed that her
performance in school was well above average. I know two girls who were admitted, and
their academic performance. Their participation in clubs and sports outside of school
were not as impressive as ours, and they were not minorities. After looking at the
statistical facts of admission rates for UNCW, maybe race is a key component in their
applications, but this isnt necessarily true for all schools.
From my experience colleges are racist when they admit minority students over
those who arent, but they are also racist when they admit non-minority students, over
those who are. I dont understand why race should be a factor. What happened to all the
hard work and effort you put into your classes and extracurricular activities and all the
time you put into taking extra courses or volunteering? What about all the stress students
put on themselves over getting good grades, and having a high GPA? When, in the end,
the reason for an applicant to be admitted into a university or rejected from one could be
dependent on a factor they cant control. I guess Im confused as to why colleges say they

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look for the best of the best, and those that perform above and beyond the average
student, when they except people who dont even meet their requirements.

Citations

"What Matters Most to Colleges." COLLEGEdata. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2015.
McWhorter, John. "Affirmative Action and College Admissions: Racism Isn't the

Only Problem." The Root. N.p., 01 Mar. 2012. Web. 29 Jan. 2015.
"Does Affirmative Action Still Exist in College Admissions?" Cardinal

Education. N.p., 06 June 2012. Web. 29 Jan. 2015.

"Admissions." First-Year Admission. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2015.
"The University of North Carolina Wilmington in Wilmington, NC - Find
Information about Admissions, Tuition, Majors and Campus Life at
Petersons.com." Petersons's. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2015.