Civil Behavior: Should a Student Conceal Her Lesbian Identity in College Application Essays?

Megan Morr/Duke University Photography

Students listen to Duke’s president, Richard H. Brodhead, communicate at the opening of the new Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity in September.

Q. Dear Civil Behavior: Our daughter is a senior in large school and quite comfy with her lesbian identity. We assistance her 100 percent, but we know the globe is not constantly so tolerant. As she’s writing her university application essays this fall, she’s “coming out” in them — and we believe that is a negative thought. You just in no way know who’s studying these essays, so why threat revealing your orientation to an individual who may well be biased against you? We’ve strongly recommended she believe more than the ramifications of what she’s carrying out, but she does not look to have any doubt about it. Deadlines are approaching and we are at an impasse. How can we persuade her to keep some items private if they may harm her probabilities of admission?” — Anonymous

A. I can see why for boomer mother and father this circumstance could be an particularly challenging phone, considering that our personal encounter colors our point of see. When our generation utilized to university, gays and lesbians stored their sexual orientation beneath wraps — for really good purpose. For instance, at Duke University, my alma mater, “the Duke of older occasions was saturated with homophobia,” its president, Richard H. Brodhead, explained in a speech this fall. He acknowledged “evidence of official intolerance and energetic repression of homosexuality at Duke from the 1960s,” and noted the national context: “It would be tough to describe these days how deeply entrenched prejudice on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity was in this nation at this time. Homophobic prejudice was everywhere, with its aggressive mockery and crude repression.” Candidates could hardly be faulted for concealing what was then a feasible cause for expulsion.

But instances have modified. It is notable that Dr. Brodhead produced his remarks at the opening of a new Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity, in the heart of Duke’s campus.

Today’s youth also have different feelings about personalized privacy than our generation does. Boomers who recognize and accept the numerous variations in sexual identity may possibly see no need to broadcast it to the world, or to make it the emphasis of a university application essay.

But a substantial school senior right now has come of age amid a torrent of texts and posts that bare everything (at times literally). So I uncover two questions inside your query: Very first, will this influence my child’s chances of admission? And second, whether or it does or not, what is the very best stance for you to consider?

For the first, I asked a quantity of recent L.G.B.T. undergrads how they had handled this situation on their university applications. One particular existing pupil advised me: “In the finish, I did not include any mention of that facet of my identity in my essays. I did not want to have even the slightest odds of affecting my probabilities of admission.” Other folks mentioned they believed that coming out in their essays had played a component in their being rejected by colleges they must have gotten into. Nonetheless others considered that by coming out they could boost the odds of admission at a school committed to a various student physique.

I also named an skilled, Christoph Guttentag, who is Duke’s dean of admissions and has go through far more than 50,000 essays. He replied that if a school has antigay policies or is normally L.G.B.T.–unfriendly (generally religious schools), then he suggests placing a lid on your sexual orientation or gender identity. Otherwise, he advised me, “When college students present themselves as who they are, it is rewarded in the admissions procedure. Authenticity is probably the attribute we see also rarely.”

On a a lot more sensible level, nevertheless, no matter what your daughter says in her essay it is not difficult for an admissions officer to discover about her sexuality. In accordance to a 2013 Kaplan Test Prep survey, 31 % of university admissions officers mentioned they had visited a prospective applicant’s social media webpage – up five percentage points from a year ago. Even a cursory on the web search could reveal that an applicant has commenced a straight-gay alliance at their large college or posted a site about the difficulties of coming out, stated Seppy Basili, a Kaplan vice president.

Are you puzzled yet? I really do not blame you — school admissions is a tough, substantial-stakes game with rules that are opaque to the players (even more so than in our day). To make items more difficult, it’s the 2nd component of your query that is the 1 with a lot more profound implications.

Here’s why: There is a huge big difference amongst sharing too significantly (which kids these days admittedly do), and actively concealing anything.

The Common App invites candidates to share “a background or story that is so central to their identity that they believe their application would be incomplete with no it.” I can feel of numerous this kind of subjects that might feel core to a high school senior. If your daughter had been adopted, had had a existence-altering accident, or were biracial, would you discourage her from creating about it? I doubt it. As one gay pupil told me, “My parents did something related and it gave me a sense of shame, that there was one thing wrong with me that essential to be hidden.”

In the finish, the strategic question almost certainly cannot be definitely answered — nor could it be the very best one to inquire. In 20 many years will she don’t forget what her essay was about? I doubt it. As 1 mother wrote me, “In the end it in fact matters really little what she decides to compose in her application, but it issues a lot if she begins to consider that her mother and father want her to hide who she is from the planet.”

Clearly you have offered your daughter a robust sense of self and the self-assurance to be who she is, even if the world is not as tolerant as we’d all hope. Confident, 1 of a parent’s jobs is to fear, but after 17 or so many years you can not be there for every single important decision in lifestyle. So, please reconsider what message you are sending to her when you request her to conceal her identity.

If you had been the parent, how would you handle this situation? And do you think they genuinely have any purpose to be concerned in this submit-Glee globe?

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 3, 2013

An earlier model of this report misspelled the provided title of Kaplan vice president. He is Seppy Basili, not Seppi.

Civil Behavior: Should a Student Conceal Her Lesbian Identity in College Application Essays?