Shortly after the US Supreme Court ruled that colleges and universities could essentially no longer consider an applicant’s race or ethnicity in admissions decisions, the Urban Institute convened a diverse group of academic researchers, policymakers, and advocates for a wide-ranging discussion about the future of college admissions from a research perspective. This report is informed by that discussion and highlights many of the complexities, nuances, and conflicts that exist in the research around college admissions and diversity and in some of the recruitment and admissions practices themselves.

Key findings include the following:

• Colleges and universities may be able to diversify their applicant pool by identifying low-income students who perform well on state standardized test scores but have not filled out a Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Notifying low-income students of their eligibility for institutional aid early in the recruitment process will likely result in more of them applying to college.
• Offering early decision may help certain schools meet numerical enrollment goals, but it can hinder efforts to enroll more diverse students, as many low-income students lack the resources and support to make early decisions about going to college. Legacy and athlete status provide a significant advantage in admissions, particularly at highly selective private colleges and universities, but it’s unclear whether eliminating the advantages of those statuses will result in more diversity.
• Community college transfer can serve as a pathway for more diverse enrollments, given the rich heterogeneity of students who attend public two-year schools, but it will require increased material support and coordination to be successful. The effectiveness of percent plans and test-optional policies for creating a more diverse student body largely depend on the specific details of those practices, which can vary widely.
• A more comprehensive adversity measure may be a better approach for maintaining or increasing diverse enrollment than a purely income-based measure. Finding ways to legally ensure an equitable college admissions process is important, but equally important is addressing the inequities in PK–12 that lead to many of the inequities in college admissions.
• To better understand the changing landscape of college admissions, more and better federally collected and disseminated data are needed.

The Supreme Court decision makes efforts to improve equity in postsecondary access more challenging, particularly at selective colleges and universities, but there are opportunities in recruitment and admissions practices that can continue to provide pathways for diversifying who applies, who is admitted, and who ultimately enrolls in college.