Q. Our Office of Admissions is considering the possibility of including on our application an optional place for prospective students to identify their sexual orientation (similar to how we ask about race and ethnicity). What are the advantages and disadvantages of adding this option?

A. There are several advantages of an inclusive admissions application:

Some LGB students will be thrilled that the school expects there will be lesbian/gay/bisexual (LBG) applicants. If this accurately reflects a positive campus climate for LGB students, this might help to increase the interest of an LGB student in pursuing an application to attend college at your school. Having this on the form may also serve to remind admissions recruiters that some of the students they are recruiting may be LGB and this may help them to avoid heterosexist language and examples when describing your campus.

If your campus has a mentoring program in place, this might help to identify students who might benefit from being invited to participate once they are on campus.

Now, one must also consider the disadvantages of adding this option:

Some high school guidance counselors help to prepare college applications as do many parents. Students who are not out to guidance counselors or to family will not check this box off accurately. Some questioning students may also not be ready to check off an LGB box. This will lead to an under-reporting of the number of :LGB applicants.

What is the school going to do with this information? It cannot be used to "measure" the number of LGB students on the campus (since many will not accurately self-report). This needs to be made very very clear so that administrators do not use the small numbers that may result to indicate there is not a need for an LGBT campus office or to discount needs for any attention to LGB issues.

Is there going to be any training for admissions staff on working with LGB students? Can you be reasonably certain that a student who outs her/himself on the form is not going to be discriminated against by admissions staff? Keep in mind, every admissions office employee and intern that handles applications will be able to see if someone checked off LGB on the form

If the campus is not particularly welcoming or even hostile, having an LGB checkoff on the application form may give the wrong impression to an applicant who is seeking a positive environment and looking for any clues she or he can find.

Some campuses have a checklist of interests for students so that they can add them to targeted mail/email announcement lists. This can include something like LGBT/Straight alliances -- so that checking this interest is not a statement about one's own orientation. These are sometimes only given to students after they are admitted, but can be a useful tool for marketing to target audiences.

Maybe a better idea would be to heavily advertise and promote the UPS LGBT Campus Resource Center to incoming first-year and transfer students and let them come to The Center of their own volition as they accommodate themselves to the idea that they might be LGBT. Such an advertising and awareness campaign will also serve to normalize the LGBT community to the entire non-LGBT campus community.

As a related issue, staff at NYU are working to have 'transgender' added to the 'gender' category on the forms. Some students do not feel they are able to check off 'male' or 'female' so the addition of 'transgender' would make the form much more inclusive.

Submitted by David Barnett, with contributions from Steven Leder (UCLA) and Todd M. Smith (NYU). Dr. Barnett may be reached at davidcbarnett@earthlink.net.

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