Sexual Orientation + Gender Identity Might Be Added To College Admissions Application

[Robinium]

College has always been a time of learning, but it appears that it is now the colleges that are learning. Proposed changes to the Common Application, used by 415 colleges and universities in the United States, may add questions regarding sexual orientation and gender identity to its list. The application is created and run by a national non-profit.

“The Common Application is considering adding voluntary questions about applicants’ sexual orientation and gender identity. The application is used by hundreds of colleges and universities — including many of the most competitive.

“The current norm in higher education is not to ask such questions, even on a voluntary basis. But with more students coming out in high school, and with some colleges explicitly taking steps to recruit gay applicants, some admissions officers and some advocates for gay students want to encourage colleges to ask the questions. But the possible switch could be controversial.

The whole article can be found here: http://lezgetreal.com/2010/08/sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity-might-be-added-to-common-college-admissions-application/

What's the point of this? Do they want to create "closet gays", people filling out they're gay so they get a better chance to be admitted to college and then have to hide their true sexual orientation? Plus they don't write if bis shall get the whole bonus or only half of it. Plus I always thought that you go to college to learn, not to f*ck.

I really don't get it.

[Robinium]

Sorry for the double posting.

[MarieDelta]

Some colleges like to provide a multicultural experience for the students. Expose them to other cultures and subcultures. Gay/les/bi/trans are considered a sub-culture of their own.

[DuckiesDarling]

Not to mention the obvious problem of dorm room sharing. Not everyone in the world is quite as open minded as we would like. A trans could put they were female on app, get roomed with another female only to be "outed". There are lots of considerations that would affect a lot of parts of campus life not just the study aspects.

[Robinium]

Not to mention the obvious problem of dorm room sharing. Not everyone in the world is quite as open minded as we would like. A trans could put they were female on app, get roomed with another female only to be "outed". There are lots of considerations that would affect a lot of parts of campus life not just the study aspects.

I did not know (or remember) that some people also spend their nights at a College... this would make the policy more understandable for me. Everything is so close together here in Germany, and the population density is so high and public transportation so good that we don't have that kind of situations, or very rarely, and then it mostly concerns private Colleges. So it would not make any sense here at all to make a fuss about welcoming gay/whatever students.

Thank you for helping me getting a clue here.


Some colleges like to provide a multicultural experience for the students. Expose them to other cultures and subcultures. Gay/les/bi/trans are considered a sub-culture of their own.

Thank you as well for your posting. I did not know that either.

In Germany, a different viewpoint on multicultural experience is more common. Like, well we have foreigners here, but we don't care about them and don't necessarily want to deal with them (or their integration), we like to use their workforce and that's it. Which has caused a lot of trouble for both sides, we have a whole generation of young Turkish people who grew up here but live in a kind of parallel system and are not well accepted by the Germans, with all the consequences you can imagine... Germans treating Turks badly and vice versa. I have the luck to pass both as a Turk and a German as I have intermediate physical features so I don't get into trouble.

Especially as we don't have enough jobs for everybody anymore. The Turks are the most numerous group of foreigners here, they were asked to come here in the 50ies/60ies when we had shortage of workforce and - big surprise - many of them stayed here as they stroke roots here. Just as I said, Germany is not a classical immigration country and not used to deal with immigration. There are student exchange etc. programs, but never with Turkey, mostly with France to help prevent the Third World War (WTF???). Multicultural experiences are usually not fostered with quotas or anything similar. But Germany is not a typical immigration country like the USA.

The LGBT sub-culture argument does not convince me. There are so many sub-cultures which are not fostered. Table-top role-players, metalheads, sprayers, pidgeon fancier clubs (a huge subculture here in some parts of the country), skittles clubs etc.