But since I’m going back to college tomorrow, I can tell you for one… they system in general is quite unkind to trans students. Almost all federal data (despite going through all the hoops when I changed my name) for FAFSA had the previous information attached….

Really sucked.

At the same time, I don’t think it’s necessarily helpful for applicants to indicate their sexual orientation or gender identity, even at schools known to be accepting. My school is a small liberal-arts college with a large, welcoming LGBT population, and it’s often stereotyped or disparaged as being full of queer folks. A few years ago Admissions did a study of popular perception of the college, and found that “transgender” was one of the “negative/weird” qualities that people associate with the school. Fear of a large LGBT community often colors our interaction with prospective students — parents will ask tour guides (especially men) if they’re gay, or whether their heterosexual child will be able to get a date. Many current students argue that the Admissions office has toned down their presentation of queer issues to prospective students, e.g., there used to be brochures in the Admissions lounge titled “Queer Life at [School Name]” — not anymore.

I worry that in a situation like that, if Admissions had access to students’ sexual orientation and gender identity, they might conclude that there’s more to be gained in terms of diversity by targeting students who AREN’T queer — the same way they target athletes to move away from our school’s reputation as, uh, wimps :p

I think that there are ways to reach out to LGBT students without explicitly asking them to identify themselves on the application (which many may be uncomfortable with anyway — don’t forget that parents, guidance counselors, etc. are also looking at students’ applications!) Perhaps there could be an additional form, that comes with the application but is mailed to a separate address and processed separately, that says something like
“Please check the appropriate box(es) if you’d like information about:
__ LGBT life on campus
__ Services for students with disabilities
__ support for students who are veterans
__ the Latin@ community on campus
etc.”

Actually, the survey didn’t go to quite all of the schools. The policy at West Point is well known.