[Updated (4/26/2016, 12:01 a.m.) with news of the Universal College Application.]
Starting this summer, students who use the Common Application will be asked to state their “sex assigned at birth.” There also will be an optional free-response text field in which applicants may describe their gender identity.
Those changes, announced on Monday by the Common Application’s leadership, follow calls from students and advocates to change how the standardized application form asks about gender. Currently, applicants are required to choose “male” or “female.” The new prompts are meant to help students express themselves in a way they feel most comfortable with, said Aba Blankson, a spokeswoman for the Common Application: “The feedback from our members and advisory committees has been consistent that, yep, this is the time, this is the right way to go.”
As society’s view of transgender people has shifted in recent years, many colleges have made changes to improve the experience of students whose identities don’t conform to conventional notions of male and female gender — or align with what’s written on their birth certificates.
In 2011, Elmhurst College became the first institution to include an optional question about sexual identity and gender orientation on its undergraduate-admission application.
Since then more colleges, including those that use the Common Application, have added similar questions to the online platform’s customizable pages.
Participating colleges will still be able to ask additional questions if they choose. But the changes announced on Monday will affect all students, regardless of where they apply.
Just five years ago, the Common Application’s board considered changing how the form dealt with gender but decided to hold off. “I don’t know that colleges were ready,” Ms. Blankson said. “Since then the conversation on campuses has changed, the national conversation has changed.”
On Tuesday, ApplicationsOnline LLC, which owns the Universal College Application, announced that it, too, would modify questions pertaining to applicants’ sex and gender identity. The 2016-17 version of its standardized form will require applicants to state their “legal sex” as either male or female (currently, the application prompts students to disclose their “sex”).
The new wording on the Universal College Application, which serves a much smaller number of colleges than the Common App does, will “more closely align with federal reporting guidelines,” according to a news release.
The 2016-17 Universal College Application also will include an optional question about gender identity. The options are “man,” “woman,” and “self-identify,” which will allow applicants to type their own responses in a text field.
