Immutable traits should never be considered, only merit.
For hundreds of years and most of recorded history, non-whites and females have been seen as inherently less capable and intellectual. Only in the past 20-40 years has Western society (as a whole) made explicit, respectable attempts at giving minorities credit for their capacity to lead and to learn.
I understand your point, and I don't think your opinion is of malice: I used to have the same one. And it is tough, because unlike some other societal issues, college admissions is a zero-sum game. Therefore, no matter how noble the idea, it seems pretty shitty that a smart, motivated and passionate white man would get passed over at an elite university in order to allow an equally passionate, motivated person of color who isn't as smart (on paper).
Diversity is useful for its own sake, and giving historically suppressed groups of people more opportunity is noble. How can we do it equitably? Perhaps use the government to better higher education instead of trillion dollar tax cuts for the uber-wealthy. But that wades further into politics.
Maybe the world's best surgeons are actually within a traditionally marginalised group, but their skill and talent isn't developed because they're denied access to quality education because their previous levels of education were of lower quality?
The best way of finding that is to have access to proper education to develop that talent. Proper education is currently a myth. Education is unfair.
If the best surgeon is out there, but has had every barrier to educational success thrown in front of them (inner city school, poor parents who can't pay for tuition to improve your grades, who can't help you access support for university applications, where there's no expectation or ambition for success, where teachers have no investment in seeing you succeed, where you see another group repeatedly, systematically preferenced because they got the birth lottery to have access to all of the above), is that the right outcome for society? To preference one group just because it's always performed reasonably as a result almost solely of their privileges?
To be clear, it's not PC culture. Noones saying an underrepresented group has to be shoehorned in to make up quotas - but seeing the context of candidates, to put weight to performance that's not just proportional, but outweighted to their background (even if it means the overall performance at the previous educational level was lower, the markers of their ability to outperform their "position" mean that given access to the top tier of education, they'd outperform).
So, if you want the cream to rise... take it from the bottom.
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The relationship between school type and academic performance at medical school: a national, multi-cohort study https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5589012/
What is the effect of secondary (high) schooling on subsequent medical school performance? A national, UK-based, cohort study. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29792300
Given the amount of free things like Khan Academy, MIT Courseware, etc. the distribution of access to resources to perform well is becoming more distributed than ever.
A poor motivated kid with good encouraging parents and access to only free resources is on a more level playing field with kids from a rich family than at any point in history.
And even if you did get out of those traps and spend the time on free stuff, it's not even going to come close to getting you on par with a tutor who knows what they're doing spending 1 on 1 time with you and parents willing to spend thousands of dollars on electronics, flying lessons, or whatever other enrichment activities support you. And where's the free equivalent of your dad getting you a high school internship at his prestigious company for kids who need to work minimum wage service jobs to help pay the bills?
"A more level playing field" is not even close to the same thing as "A level playing field" today, and it won't be for a long time. That's why diversity programs are still important.
Your main contention is that a kid with access to tutors, expensive electronics and flight training is going to get a far superior education to someone who is working with their parents to direct their own study. Those things aren't as big of a differentiator as they used to be in one's ability to obtain an education. Much of the pedagogical value a tutor can provide in sequencing topics is easy to find online--often written by the very people who would make the best tutors. The ability to ask questions and get answers is also easily available. Is it nice having someone decide exactly what you need to work on and learn. Sure, but in terms of access to educational resources, not having a tutor isn't a particularly big differentiator.
> How much time have you spent with poor families?
I grew up below the poverty line, so a reasonable amount of time.
There's no mention in the CMU process of being 'passed along'. In fact, its all about them standing on their own merit, and not their alumni-parent nor influential uncle.
I'm so glad to hear 'your bias' is right in line with the new CMU process!