The United States Supreme Court
The University of Michigan Admissions Lawsuits

Gratz v. Bollinger
THE FACTS

Racially Disparate Probabilities of Admission
For Applicants with the Same Grades and Test Scores

Computed from 1995 undergraduate admissions data provided
by the University of Michigan to the Center for Equal Opportunity
(The complete report is online here.)

Jennifer Gratz, who is white, applied in 1995 to the University of Michigan College of Literature, Science and the Arts (LSA), and was rejected. Gratz's GPA was 3.8; her ACT score, 25. This placed her at the 70th percentile of all applicants in grades, and somewhat above the 30th percentile in test scores. Her fellow Plaintiff-Petitioner in this case, Patrick Hamacher, also white, applied for admission into the fall 1997 freshman class of the LSA, and was rejected. His grade-point average was 3.0, and his ACT score was 28. If the competition in 1997 was similar to that in 1995, his grades were between the 10th and 20th percentiles, and his score at about the 60th.

The table below provides a profile of the racial disadvantage faced in 1995 by white and Asian, as compared with black and Hispanic, applicants with the same grades and test scores. The disadvantage is not as large in Michigan's undergraduate college as in its Law School. For applicants to the latter, the racial disparities at most percentiles are huge. Whereas, for LSA hopefuls, the difference falls to 10 percentage points by the 50th percentile, and continues to shrink. In 1995, the college admitted 74% of its 16,000 applicants; that same year, the Law School accepted only 27% of 4000.

University of Michigan College of Literature, Science and the Arts
Profile of 1995 Probabilities of Admission for Black and Hispanic Versus
White and Asian Applicants with the Same High-School Grades and SAT Scores

The figures in this table are computed from 1995 admissions data provided by the University of Michigan to the Center for Equal Opportunity, and used in the CEO report, "Racial Preferences in Michigan Higher Education," by Robert Lerner and Althea Nagai, published in 1998. The report is online here, along with a University of Michigan "Admissions Predictor." It uses the 1995 data to show the different probabilities of admission by race, for any combination of grades and SAT (but unfortunately not ACT) scores. The figures above are rounded to the nearest percentage point: 100% represents probabilities ranging from 95.5 almost to but never quite reaching 100.