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When asked to randomly select answer choices on easy multiple choice questions, people select more correct answers than expected by chance. Sparrow and Wegner showed that this tendency was eliminated if participants answered questions correctly before answering randomly. They argued that answering a question correctly unprimes the tendency to choose the correct answer, thereby reducing the correct response rate close to the chance level of.5. An alternative explanation, consistent with these results, is that answering questions correctly provides a baseline, which allows participants to strategize, i.e., to match and mismatch equal numbers of their purportedly random responses to the baseline response. Three studies showed that the presence of a baseline, even when unpriming is not feasible, led to lower correct response rates than those obtained in a condition in which no baseline was available. Furthermore, the presence of a baseline led to more nonrandom sequences of correct and incorrect responses. One specific sequence–alternating correct and incorrect answers–mediated the relation between the presence of a baseline and lower correct response rate. These findings suggest that strategizing, not unpriming, accounts for Sparrow and Wegner’s results.

This paper is a literature review on the personal statement, merit, race, and racism through the application of colorblind and race-neutral policies. In an attempt to avoid racist admission policies, higher education place overwhelming emphasis on objective merits, such as grades. However, during the personal statement writing process, minoritized applicants' expression of merit may be affected by racial inequities, experiences, and educational preparation, both consciously and unconsciously. Therefore, by excluding race, colorblind merit policies may contribute to unexpected and unintentional racism in admission. In this paper, college-choice theory (CCT), critical race theory (CRT), and critical literacy theory (CLT) are used to interrogate colorblind merit in higher education to suggest why race is an important feature of applicants' narratives in the personal statement context. If race is significant to applicants' identities, then their narratives would be incomplete without it. There is a need to centralize both merit and race in personal statement research to allow education professionals to appropriately assess applicants' statements. Reintegrating race in assessments could improve our understanding of selective college admission processes and inform recommendations to refine instruction and evaluation of applicants' personal statement writing.