In the United States, virtually every college admissions counselor says they are looking for one thing in their student body: diversity. But unlike grades, test scores or some extracurricular accomplishments, diversity is hard to quantify. You can have higher grades, better test scores or more impressive extracurricular activities than another applicant but can you be more or less diverse?

Diversity is a difficult concept. While people will have very different ideas about what the term means, this article will focus on what is most relevant to you: how to approach the topic of diversity in your college applications as an international student. In order to provide some context, the first section of this article will provide a brief overview of how diversity has worked as a concept in American universities. The second section will then offer some practical tips for preparing your application with diversity in mind.

College Admissions and Diversity in American Universities: Current Context and History

Discussions on American university campuses about diversity can be hard to understand without some context. For most of its history, the United States was a country in which access to the majority of its universities was limited to well-off white men. In order to correct this injustice, many American colleges have tried to increase enrollment of ethnic minority students. Such initiatives to increase the number of ethnic minority students on campus are the historical origin of talk about “diversity” on American college campuses. 

So, why do people support such programs? Firstly, in the United States, it is generally seen as important that the country’s institutions reflect the composition of the country itself. If 12% of Americans identify as Black, it would be seen as scandalous by many if the student body at Harvard or Yale was only 3% Black. 

Secondly, such programs are seen as helping correct the societal effects of racial discrimination and economic inequality. If a Latino student does not have the same access to education due to their family’s lower socioeconomic status, or racial discrimination, a program at a university that aims to recruit more Latino students can help correct those injustices by helping that student get into university.

This element of talk about diversity tries to see students’ achievements in the context of their challenges. If two students have roughly similar grades and test scores, but one student grew up in extreme poverty suffering racial discrimination while the other is rich and suffered no such discrimination, the former student will be a better candidate for admission. Even if the poorer student has worse grades and test scores, they might still be a stronger candidate for admission if they have overcome more significant challenges.

Thirdly, diversity on campus can be seen as benefiting all students by exposing them to new perspectives. America, as a multiethnic society, highly values contact between people of different backgrounds. Many who support diversity on campus therefore say that even non-minority students benefit from diversity by being exposed to the perspectives of minority students. 

When we talk about diversity on campus in the United States, ethnic diversity remains the most common sense of the term. For instance, if you were to Google “most diverse colleges in the United States” the search engine would return ranking a number of colleges based on the proportion of ethnic minority students in the student bodies.

Nevertheless, programs to increase ethnic diversity in American universities have led to a more general interest in promoting diversity of different kinds. For instance, admissions counselors can be interested in making sure the student body is diverse in terms of religion, military service, class, nationality, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity. Even diversity has become more diverse!

College Admissions and Diversity: Tips and Strategies

In the last section, we discussed three justifications for diversity-enhancing programs at colleges in the United States. The first, which has to do with making sure American universities have student bodies which are representative of the overall population of the United States, is obviously not very relevant to international students. The other two justifications for diversity on campus, however, can be very relevant to writing a good application as an international student.

As we discussed above, admissions counselors in the United States are interested in putting your achievements in the context of your challenges. For example, if you grew up in a low-income home, mentioning this in your application can be a great way to make your accomplishments stand out.

It can be difficult, however, to talk about some things in a college application. Poverty, disability, discrimination are not typically things we discuss with complete strangers. So it can feel strange to talk about these things in our college applications. 

One strategy for dealing with this problem is to focus on the facts. You are not trying to be overly emotional in your essays or win the sympathy of the admissions counselors. You are just trying to provide more context about your life. You are trying to communicate what specific struggles you have had to overcome in order to achieve everything you have achieved up until this moment. 

If you do not feel comfortable writing about your struggles directly, a great strategy for communicating this information is to ask one of your recommendation writers to do so. If someone writing a letter of recommendation for you knows you well, they can share information that you might be less comfortable sharing directly.

As an international student, however, it is important to remember that some admissions counselors might lack context about your background. While an admissions counselor might assume a student coming from rural Alabama is less privileged as compared to a student coming from a rich area of Manhattan, they might not make the same assumptions about a student from a poor village in Romania. Your application materials are opportunities to share this kind of information if you think it might not otherwise be obvious to an admissions counselor.

Secondly, when writing your application with diversity in mind, think about what you would have to share with your fellow students. You might be one of the only students from your country in your class at university. How would having you on campus benefit these other students? What could they learn from you that they could not learn from someone else?

 Even if there are many other prospective students from your country at this university, what unique perspective could you share? Maybe you are from a rural area, belong to an ethnic or linguistic minority, or have lived abroad in addition to living in your home country. Think about what might be interesting to your fellow students and try to communicate that in your application.

Sharing how you could contribute to diversity on campus accomplishes two things. One, it gives you an opportunity to share what is unique about you. Two, it helps show that you are community-minded and want to contribute to the educational experience of your peers. By doing this, you both show how you stand out compared to other applicants but also how you would fit in with your prospective classmates if admitted.

Navigating the college admissions process is difficult—doubly so for international students. Writing your applications with diversity in mind, however, does not have to be an added stress. Ultimately, crafting your application with diversity in mind just means communicating what makes you different. The more effectively you can do that, the more your application will go beyond just highlighting your accomplishments and present you as a truly unique candidate.