A proposal at the University of California would hide college applicants' names in favor of identifying them by their Social Security number.
But officials said the University of Michigan doesn't plan to follow California's lead.
The proposed change, offered by University of California Regent Ward Connerly, hopes to conceal all clues of applicants' gender, ethnic and racial background.
However, applicants to the University of Michigan shouldn't expect their application to be nameless.
"There are no plans to change our applications," said Julie Peterson, director of news and information services.
The involvement of race, gender and ethnic background in considering admissions to public universities has been a hot topic in recent months.
Tuesday, a federal appeals court upheld California's Proposition 209, which allows voters to eliminate affirmative action policies in admissions decisions.
Last year, the University of Texas lost in the federal court ruling of Hopwood v. Texas, which declared their affirmative action policies were unconstitutional for a public university. However, the university was warned by the U.S. Board of Education that they would lose funding if they discontinued race-based admissions policies.
Peterson said the University of Michigan does not consider racial or ethnic background in admissions, but does "look for a very diverse (student) body."
The University did, however, decide last month to extend the deadline for minority applications and students with exceptional academic backgrounds by an extra month and actively encouraged students in the two groups to apply.
Some students, however, said they think a student's background may have something to do with admissions, and that nameless applications may help eliminate that.
"I think it's a great way to do it," said LSA sophomore MacKenzie Grant. "It really gets back to the idea of merit. This would help out a lot."
LSA first-year student Shruthi Reddy said the nameless applications could stop discrimination.
"Ideally, (admissions) should be based only on academics," said Reddy, but added that the University seems committed to have a student body with "racially different backgrounds."
LSA junior Carmen Grindatti agreed that nameless applications could eliminate discrimination. "I suppose it's one way," she said. "When you think about it, names do tell you a lot."
Grindatti also pointed out that names can be misleading because they do not reflect the student's full ethnic background.
However, students said it is hard to eliminate all clues to an applicant's background due to pronouns a teacher might use in a letter of recommendation or the student's participation in certain extracurricular activities.
Grant said she doesn't find a problem with that. She said universities should know a little about an applicant's background.
"Your gender is part of what makes you who you are," Grant said. "Your race is part of what makes you who you are."