Michigan Takes a New Path to School Diversity

Beginning this fall, those who hope to go to the Ann Arbor campus will be asked to write 250 words on how they can contribute to a "diverse educational community" or how they have been affected by "cultural diversity."

An expanded team will read through more than 25,000 applications, including the essays, in search of students who can contribute to the "intellectual vibrancy and diversity of the student body," school officials said.

The new admissions plan is the latest effort in the long struggle over affirmative action.

Since the mid-1970s, most colleges and universities have sought to enroll more minority students, but several have been sued successfully for using quota-like policies that put significant weight on a student's race or ethnicity.

In its June ruling, the Supreme Court endorsed the goal of seeking racial diversity on campus, but struck down Michigan's policy of awarding a 20-point bonus to undergraduate applicants who were black, Latino or Native American. The points were awarded on a 150-point scale that also took into account an applicant's grade-point average and SAT scores, the quality of the student's high school and the level of difficulty of the student's course of study, among other factors.

In a second ruling, the court upheld the admissions policy at Michigan's law school because a student's race was used as only one factor in an "individualized" assessment.

On Thursday, Michigan officials said they planned to adapt this individualized approach to handling the huge volume of applications for undergraduates.

Each year, the Ann Arbor campus receives about 25,000 applications and accepts more than 12,000 students. From this group, about 5,200 enroll and start classes each fall, said Julie Peterson, a spokeswoman for the university.

The new admissions policy will be more costly and time-consuming for the university, officials said in a briefing.

"We will be seeking a critical mass" of minority students, said Paul N. Courant, the provost at Michigan. In recent years, between 11% and 17% of students the university has enrolled have been minorities, and Courant said he expected that range would remain unchanged.