Holistic Admissions Review After the End of Affirmative Action
By Muntasir • Published May 28, 2024 • Updated Sep 27, 2026 • US College Admissions
In June 2023 the Supreme Court ruled colleges cannot use race as a direct factor in admissions. Colleges still review applications holistically, but now focus on how a student's background shaped their character, not their race itself.
The ruling, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, struck down race-conscious admissions at Harvard and UNC.
Colleges can still consider an essay describing how race affected the applicant's life, if it's tied to individual qualities like courage or leadership.
Colleges cannot use race as a checked box or a proxy through indirect means.
Many schools revised essay prompts to ask about background, identity, or obstacles overcome in open language.
Grades, test scores, essays, activities, and recommendations still form the core of holistic review.
What the Supreme Court decided
On June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court ruled in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard , a case that also covered a companion challenge to the University of North Carolina, that race-conscious admissions programs violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The decision ended a practice, in place since the 1970s at many selective colleges, of considering an applicant's race directly as one factor within a holistic review alongside grades, essays, and activities.
The ruling applies to any college that receives federal funding, which covers nearly every private and public college in the country, not only the two named in the case.
What colleges can still consider
The ruling did not ban students from writing about race, ethnicity, or cultural identity in their applications. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion that colleges may still consider "an applicant's discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise," as long as the college connects that discussion to the individual's demonstrated qualities, such as courage, determination, or leadership, rather than treating race itself as the deciding factor.
In practice, this means an essay describing how a student navigated being one of few students of their background at their school, or how a family's immigration story shaped their work ethic, remains valid material for a holistic review. What changed is that colleges can no longer treat race as a checked box that adds a direct boost to an application.
How admissions offices responded
Many colleges updated their essay prompts after the ruling to invite students to write about identity, community, or formative experiences in open language, rather than asking directly about race. This lets students who want to write about race and its effect on their life still do so, tied to what it taught them or how it shaped who they are, while the college's process stays within the ruling's limits.
Some colleges also placed more weight on factors correlated with, but distinct from, race, including socioeconomic background, first-generation college status, and the specific high school or neighborhood an applicant comes from. These factors were already part of holistic review before the ruling and remain fully permitted afterward.
What colleges cannot do
Colleges cannot ask applicants to identify their race on the application and use that as a factor in the decision. They also cannot use an indirect proxy, such as automatically favoring essays that reference a particular racial or ethnic group, as a substitute for the banned practice. The distinction the ruling draws is between race as an individual's lived experience shaping their character, which stays permitted, and race as a demographic category used to sort applicants, which does not.
Where things stand now
Civil rights groups, students, and colleges continue to watch how the ruling gets applied case by case, since the line between a permitted personal essay and an impermissible proxy is not always obvious. Individual colleges also differ in how cautious or open their new essay prompts are. Read each college's own admissions statement on the ruling, most selective schools published one, to understand how that college describes its updated process.
What it means for your application
Write your essays around your actual experiences and what they taught you about yourself, not around what you guess a college wants to hear about your background. Colleges still want a full, individual picture of who you are, built from your grades, essays, activities, and recommendations together.
If race, ethnicity, or cultural background shaped an experience that matters to you, write about it honestly, framed around what it taught you or how it built specific qualities like resilience or leadership. Socioeconomic background, first-generation status, geography, and family circumstances remain fair game as separate factors from race, and many students find these areas offer just as much room to show who they are.