Although the debate on higher education access is an old acquaintance, this demand has increased with Operation Varsity Blues, the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the pandemic COVID-19. Diversity issues in public and private spaces in the United States led me to ask: why are there few African American Women in their first year at the Ohio State University?

"Merit-based" is an exploration of individual narratives and school district funding. Inspired in the visual artists Aminah Brenda Robinson, Faith Ringgold, and Chief Baba Shongo Obadina, this college application quilt is part of a Co-Design research on African American Women College application process.

This research invites African American Women to create their ideal college application journey using participatory methods and their lived experience as argument. The results of this study are expected to examine how people's realities impact individual capabilities and how they can be accounted for and folded into the Design of the University application process. This project seeks to prototype an alternative application apparatus to facilitate their application process.