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by Benjamin S. Baum L GBT Applicants and Challenges for Admission: Five Cases Few professional processes are more personally intrusive than the college application. It demands information about your family, your finances, your interests, and your desires. For , , bisexual, and (LGBT) applicants in their teenage years who may not be comfortable with their sexuality, admission officers need be sensitive to a key difference that can make their circumstances especially complex. That difference: in most cases, an LGBT applicant does not have LGBT parents, and his or her parents may or may not know or approve of their child’s sexuality. Further, the applicant may not be “out” to anyone yet or perhaps even ready to acknowledge LGBT orientation.

This article highlights five cases from my experience coordinating LGBT recruitment at Tufts University (MA). The names and some details are modified to protect the individuals’ privacy.

Case One: Finances and Families parents were financially able to pay at least part of his tuition, so One day in April 2010, I received an email from a public high school John did not qualify for any additional need-based financial aid. guidance counselor. The counselor’s student, John, had applied to This was the conundrum. Tufts, been admitted, received financial aid, yet the counselor told me that John could not afford Tufts. John and his family, based It is not unusual for students and parents to select a college based on their need, were asked to pay approximately $10,000 (known on cost. Tufts meets the full demonstrated need of each admitted as the “expected family contribution”). His parents refused to pay. student by providing need-based financial aid. Some colleges offer Why? merit-based financial aid over-and-above need that attracts these students and their families. Other parents, financially able to pay John’s parents refused to pay because John is gay. tuition at a place like Tufts, might refuse to pay because they do not like a child’s choice of major, their friends or the distance from Like many LGBT teenagers, John began to come out to friends home. Parents cannot refuse to pay tuition and expect to receive in high school before he told his family. As news spread at his financial aid. Any other rule would defeat the whole premise of suburban public school, John’s younger siblings discovered his supplying financial aid to those who need it. sexuality and reported it to their parents. When his parents con- fronted John and he admitted that he was gay, John’s parents beat I made the argument to Tufts’ director of financial aid that she should him. He vividly described his mother’s physical abuse; ironically use her professional discretion to treat John as an independent her wedding ring cut into his face. The police got involved, a report minor. Such a maneuver is known as a “dependency override.” As was filed, and John moved in with friends for the remainder of his an independent minor, John’s financial need would no longer be senior year of high school. a function of his parents’ resources, so he would qualify for full need-based financial aid. Under federal law, which applies to any Without his parents’ financial support, John had no way to pay for institution using federal funds for financial aid, a director can make college. According to most college financial aid policies, John’s a dependency override in a number of specific circumstances, such

WWW.NACACNET.ORG FALL 2012 JOURNAL OF COLLEGE ADMISSION | 25 as age, orphan status, marriage, and homelessness, though none At Tufts, “[i]t is the policy of the University not to discriminate of these were John’s case. However, a director can also “make… on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, age, religion, a documented determination of independence by reason of other disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, unusual circumstances” (HEA §480(d)(7)). or status as a veteran, in the administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, employment policies, scholarship Did John’s case qualify as one of “unusual circumstances?” By the and loan programs, and athletic or other university-sponsored pro- broad language of federal law, one might think so. A dependency grams.” A denial of financial aid to a student whose parents refuse override is permitted in circumstances where it would be inap- to pay for Tufts on the basis of the child’s sexual orientation could propriate to expect a parental contribution toward the student’s be said to implicate the non-discrimination statement. college expenses. Per Department of Education Dear Colleague Letter (GEN) 03-07, any override must involve (1) Ideally, a financial aid policy needs to be flexible enough to ac- a case-by-case determination of unusual circumstances and (2) commodate the unusual circumstances of some LGBT applicants, documentation of those unusual circumstances. whether or not they suffer physical abuse. A four-pronged require- ment for a dependency override could consist of: However, the Department of Education provides the following list of circumstances that are not unusual, all of which seemed to be 1. Parental refusal to pay for the education of a child on the basis the situation with John: of a protected category in the university non-discrimination statement 1. Parents refusing to contribute to the student’s education 2. Parental refusal to pay for basic, daily expenses of the child 2. Parents unwilling to provide information on the application or (including food and housing) on the basis of a protected cat- for verification egory in the university non-discrimination statement 3. Parents not claiming the students as a dependent for income 3. Parental behavior that rises to the level of physical or emo- tax purposes tional abuse 4. Students demonstrating total self-sufficiency (GEN 03-07). 4. Third party documentation of such refusal, discrimination and abuse. Given these limitations, there was only one factor in John’s case that made his dependency override possible, his physical abuse There are several advantages to the above-suggested policy. at the hands of his parents. The Department of Education specifi- The policy is rooted in a non-discrimination statement and does cally says that “an abusive family environment or abandonment by not single out one class of students; it could protect other students parents” could constitute the requisite unusual circumstances. who are discriminated against for their religious beliefs, for instance. I spoke with John’s guidance counselor, acquired written statements The policy prevents gaming of the system by giving ultimate authority from her and from John himself, and procured the police report. to the university officer and by looking for serious signs of familial With this documentation, the director made a dependency override. support breakdown beyond refusal to pay for education. The policy also meets the federal standard of “unusual circumstances” because As a result, John received his financial aid and enrolled at Tufts, a university officer must find abuse and document her determinations. but his case raises big questions about how sexual orientation and financial aid eligibility are intertwined. What if there had not been Case Two: Sex and Prejudice physical abuse? Without this abuse, could the director have used One day in May, a colleague forwarded an email to me from Mr. her discretion to make a dependency override? Should she have? Smith, the parent of a student who had not been admitted to Tufts. In fact, Mr. Smith’s son had not even applied to Tufts—Mr. Smith’s While the law is specific about what cannot count toward a depen- reason to email was an effort to sabotage the candidacy of his son’s dency override, it gives broad latitude to financial aid officers to high school classmate, Henry. Henry had been admitted to Tufts determine what counts as unusual circumstances (GEN 03-07). and intended to enroll for the fall. Mr. Smith not only emailed, but one day he arrived on campus, apparently having driven about one I propose one way to employ this broad latitude is through the thousand miles just to inform our office that Henry should never lens of the individual university’s non-discrimination statement. have been admitted.

26 | FALL 2012 JOURNAL OF COLLEGE ADMISSION WWW.NACACNET.ORG Mr. Smith told our office that Henry had raped his son. In Mr. but in stages. Peter would have “top” surgery before arriving on Smith’s words, Henry engaged in the “homosexual rape of a non- campus but wait until later for “bottom” surgery. Starting at Tufts, gay, non-consenting fellow male student whom the perpetrator Peter wanted a fresh beginning with a new name and new gender knew to have a girlfriend.” Mr. Smith’s mission was to ensure that identity, and as little baggage as possible. his son’s rapist did not enroll in college. Henry had problems well beyond his admission to Tufts; Mr. Smith had pressed charges The director of the LGBT Center and I went about trying to ef- against Henry in his home county and successfully derailed a fect these changes. In the process, we made a deliberate effort to scholarship he had been awarded. keep the circumstances and name of the student from becoming widespread. He got approval from the Office of Residential Life In following up on the circumstances, I found a complicated story. to house Peter in a single room without a roommate. I spoke with Henry had the full support of his high school, which did not believe the dean of undergraduate admission and a single member of the rape allegations were founded. In fact, other students reported our support team—the only two people in the office aware of the that Henry’s accuser had been secretly dating Henry, and it was situation—to have name and gender on such forms as housing, only when Henry’s accuser informed his family of their relationship orientation and registration changed. Most of these changes could that chaos broke loose. As the parent informed us, his son was not be made electronically, but part of the process involved black- gay (despite evidence to the contrary) and the sex was nonconsen- ing out his former name and gender on the application materials sual (despite evidence to the contrary). Henry was never convicted and replacing these with his new name and gender, plus printing of a crime. new labels for Peter’s application folder—the same application materials and folder that would migrate to Student Services for his Leaving aside the details of Henry’s case, the admission process, permanent academic record. The only indicator of Peter’s former which delves so deeply into applicants’ personal lives, is fertile name and gender remained on a document that I chose not to ground for prejudice related to sexual orientation. Henry’s orien- change, his high school transcript. There, I attached a signed let- tation, his legal troubles and his admission to college were all ter noting the change in name and confirming that this high school inextricably bound. A mechanical response to allegations of rape, transcript belonged to Peter. a blanket rule to keep such applicants at bay, disproportionately impacts LGBT applicants, due to widespread prejudice in their Case Four: Subtle Recruitment home communities. In Henry’s situation, there were weeks of com- There is a growing industry of recruitment tools for LGBT appli- munication between his high school and our office, with university cants to college. The best known of these is the traditional college counsel and, in the end, Henry himself. This is not typical fare fair with a twist—fairs that are especially for LGBT applicants and for college admission officers, but it demonstrates the depth of LGBT friendly colleges. The Campus Pride organization’s fairs in involvement prejudice against LGBT people can necessitate just to Boston and New York feature a large collection of colleges. make their applications’ viable. In the end, Henry enrolled at Tufts. Who attends an LGBT college fair? You see a heart-melting col- Case Three: Gender Identity and Change lection of mothers with their gay sons and occasional groups of The director of the Tufts LGBT Center called me because an ap- LGBT friends who have shown up together. These students are plicant we had admitted was in the process of transitioning from a “out.” They are more or less comfortable with their sexuality (or as woman to a man. When Peter had applied to Tufts, there were no comfortable as any teenager can be with issues of sexuality) and LGBT indicators in his file, and he identified himself as a woman more or less comfortable visiting an LGBT friendly college fair as and used a woman’s name. Now Peter wanted our office to aid his much as any other college fair, which they probably also attended. transition to college by erasing any records of his former gender. Going forward, Peter would only be identified as a man (known as Who does not attend an LGBT college fair? The vast majority of “stealth trans”). high school students struggling with their sexuality, or those not out to their friends or families. As one recent study showed, only Changing genders is complicated not only for the person doing about 46 percent of LGBT high school seniors are out to their so, but also for those people who know about the former gender. family members (Rankin, et al. 2010). This is true even across Which pronoun do you use? Which pronoun do you use when refer- vast socioeconomic and cultural divides. There is a fair in New ring to things that happened before the change of gender? Even York City, for example, sponsored by the Hetrick-Martin Institute more complex is when the person may be undergoing surgery, and hosted at the High School (the only public high

WWW.NACACNET.ORG FALL 2012 JOURNAL OF COLLEGE ADMISSION | 27 school in the country geared toward LGBT students), where the is a gender option on forms.” A third explained her rationale for students are by-and-large black and Latino urban youths learning applying: “As a student with a million interests and questions, I about the college process for the first time. They, too, attend this want a college with a wide variety of undergraduate programs, fair because they managed to get themselves to an LGBT high which will guarantee the opportunity to learn anything and every- school to begin with. thing. I want an atmosphere of both cooperation and academic rigor, both quirky fun and impassioned work, at a college that As a new industry, the LGBT college fair may have an opportunity encourages students to ‘specify other’ in the box labeled gen- to grow and improve. At the moment, for those students unsure or der.” And a fourth said: “I love that Tufts is so accepting that struggling with their sexuality, college fairs are not how we reach the supplement has gender options male, female and other.” At these applicants. present, only one university in the US, Elmhurst College (IL), directly asks applicants about their sexual orientation, though At the National Association for College Admission’s Counseling’s there is debate about adding such a question to the Common 2011 National Conference in , an admission officer Application (Hoover, 2011). A question about sexual orientation, from (LA) talked about the subtle placement of like a question that allows for a “gender, other” option, may only LGBT friendly images in college viewbooks. Tulane’s viewbook was cause a limited number of applicants comfortable with their filled with typical images of college students studying outdoors, or sexuality to check the box, but may make many more appreciate professors lecturing in classrooms; a careful eye would have also the university as one that values LGBT students. noticed a rainbow flag, a common symbol of the LGBT community, hanging from a storefront in one photo. The Tufts admission Web Case Five: Convincing Them to Come site displays a photo album of the well-known Tufts cannon, which A small but increasing number of students reveal their sexuality is painted nightly by student groups for any number of fun or seri- on their college applications. Sometimes these are applicants ous reasons. More than one of those cannon photos depicts a time engaged in their high school LGBT communities who write about when an LGBT group painted the cannon with a rainbow flag. While extracurricular activities that make their sexual orientation obvi- a heterosexual applicant might pass over these images as quickly ous. Others write an essay about their sexuality (the Common as they ignore ubiquitous pictures of smiling students on a verdant Application personal essay gives broad prompts to allow this topic, quad, an LGBT applicant takes notice.1 but so too does the Tufts Supplement, which asks applicants to tell us about their self identity, however they define it). When an Empirical evidence shows that LGBT applicants take notice of applicant writes about his or her sexuality, however, they are not such subtleties. One applicant to Tufts in 2012 wrote: “When always out. It is not uncommon for an applicant to tell us about his I went to the Tufts Web site, the existence of the Lesbian Gay or her orientation in an essay, but then also tell us that we are the Bisexual and Transgender Center convinced me that Tufts really only ones who know about it. has an atmosphere of freedom.” Many others also referred to information they found online about the LGBT Center. Some Three years ago, Tufts began experimenting with a new way to noticed pride flags hanging on campus, or how the diversity reach LGBT admitted students. As readers, we flagged any stu- publication at Tufts includes, among categories such as “racial dent who identifies as LGBT in the application. I invite a group of and ethnic diversity,” “geographic diversity,” “religious diversity,” current Tufts students involved with the Tufts LGBT Center and and “sexuality and gender diversity.” LGBT applicants, closeted have them call the list of LGBT-identified admitted students as or not, have easy access to these resources and subtle forms of part of our diversity outreach phone-a-thon. inclusion online. There is one big caveat to these calls: whoever answers the phone, Similarly, Tufts was the first university in the US to offer appli- whether student or parent, does not know that the reason they are cants the option of checking “gender, other” on the application. being called is because of sexual orientation. The Tufts student greets In 2012, two applicants checked this box, but many more found the voice on the other end of the line, offers congratulations on accep- its presence comforting. One LGBT applicant to Tufts in 2012 re- tance, offers to answer any questions about Tufts, and then identifies ferred specifically to the “gender, other” option as influencing her himself as a current student majoring in X, playing Y sport, living in Z decision to apply. Another wrote: “I want a school where ‘other’ dorm, and, by the way, also involved with the LGBT Center.

1 Others have noted similar recruiting trend at many universities, including many LGBT Centers, and the University of Southern California (CA), which advertises how prospective students can stay overnight in a LGBT-oriented dormitory (Cegler, 2012).

28 | FALL 2012 JOURNAL OF COLLEGE ADMISSION WWW.NACACNET.ORG Responses to these calls run the gamut. Sometimes the students merely leave a message or talk to a parent. Sometimes the admit- Benjamin S. Baum is associate ted student does not have questions, or only has questions about director of admissions at Tufts academic life at Tufts. In the minority of cases the admitted student University (MA). He received his B.A. from (MA), M.St. in eagerly asks questions about LGBT life. In the majority, after the cur- Modern History from the University rent student leaves his or her email address, the admitted student of Oxford (UK), and J.D. from the calls later the same evening with the questions he or she really wanted University of Michigan Law School. to ask about being LGBT at Tufts. Maybe they were not comfortable asking those questions over the phone on the spur of the moment. Maybe their parents were sitting in the same room. What I have tried to enable is a conversation between LGBT applicants and students REFERENCES that respects the applicants’ privacy, their varying degrees of “out- ness,” and their need to know more about LGBT life in college. Cegler, T. (2012). Targeted Recruitment of GLBT by Colleges and Universities. The Journal of College Admission, 215, 18-23.

As seen through these five cases, LGBT applicants can pose some spe- Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA) §480(d)(7). cial challenges during the admission process. Admission officers are Hoover, E. (2011). Elmhurst College Will Ask Applicants About Sexual Orientation. The used to considering demographic factors when reading and recruiting Chronicle of Higher Education. Retried from http://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/elmhurst- college-will-ask-applicants-about-sexual-orientation/28553. students, but being LGBT does not quite align with how we treat race, Rankin, S., Weber, G., Blumenfeld, W. & Frazer, S. (2010). 2010 State of Higher Education religion, socioeconomics, or other statuses. The defining difference for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender People. Campus Pride. Retrieved from http://www. is that most demographics are shared between parents and children. campuspride.org/Campus%20Pride%202010%20LGBT%20Report%20Summary.pdf. There are rare exceptions where parents and children do not have the Tufts University Nondiscrimination Policy (2010). Retrieved from http://oeo.tufts.edu/ wp-content/uploads/NonDiscriminationPolicyEnglishVersion.pdf. same race or socioeconomic status, or where religion or disability set family members apart. Differences in sexual orientation stand out as United States Department of Education Dear Colleague Letter (GEN) 03-07. a characteristic that needs to be treated with special consideration.

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