When I arrived at Ohio State University in 1984, OSU's student body looked much more homogeneous than those of Harvard and Princeton. It seemed as if most of the female students dyed their hair blond, and most of the male students wore baseball caps (often backwards). But what I found most striking was that the students seemed almost uniformly white. Even Princeton, with its history of "eating clubs" that at various times discriminated against women, Jews, Catholics, and people of color, looked racially diverse compared to Ohio State. I asked a colleague why this was. The answer was "there are no blacks in Ohio." As I drove east from campus to the Columbus airport through miles and miles of African American neighborhoods (before Interstate 670 was completed), I wondered what that really meant.
Until 1987, OSU had open admissions; I was told that all you needed to get in was an Ohio high school diploma. In 1987, OSU raised its academic standards for admission to the Columbus (flagship) campus, basing it on grades, test scores, and minimum course requirements. Looking around campus, it seemed to me that the number of students of color went up. When I've told people this, they've immediately tried to correct me: "No, you mean the number went down."
I mean it went up. Enough for me to notice. Why was that? I asked around, and was told that open admissions at Ohio State had been on a first-come, first-served basis. Submitting an application by the publicly stated deadline wasn't soon enough. The high school students from the wealthy white suburbs were told by savvy guidance counselors the date by which they needed to submit their college applications in order to be accepted to the main campus of Ohio State. The inner city schools didn't have that information.
Open admissions policies often have noble goals of equal access. But to achieve equal opportunity and equal access, one needs equal information.