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Comment by kart23 | Hacker News Reader

College admissions aren't about sat scores anymore. I graduated from high school this year, and know 2 people going to Harvard. It doesn't matter if you get perfect sat scores, it matters about what you do outside of school, and whether you spend all your time studying or actually doing something that will contribute to society. Numbers just aren't enough to admit students by, since if they admitted everyone with perfect scores, they would have way too many students.

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I graduated from highschool 20+ years ago (1997, holy smokes!) and it was the same deal then. There were about 25 of us in my graduating class that ran the table with perfect SATs, 5s on all our APs, perfect GPA, etc and we all applied to pretty much all the Ivies. It was arbitrary who got in where, no rhyme or reason as far as we could tell then. Sounds like it hasn't changed much.

Except for if you read the article you would see that it's not arbitrary, but based on racial discrimination.

That has not been proven at all.

Apparently it also matters where your parents went to school, what your father or mother does for a living, and what color your skin is.

Race is a big factor.

It's a factor, but not a big one, and will usually make you have a bigger chance at getting in, but rarely will it decrease your chances. Harvard accepted ~17% Asian people, while the people who are suing them say it should be closer to 40%, like the UC system, which is race blind. They dont consider that more asians live in California, and thus more apply to the UCs. Yes, being black, Hispanic, or native American can often give you a boost in the admissions process, but I think it's a good thing, colleges are trying to correct how tough it was historically for certain ethnic groups. I would say that college admissions are for the most part pretty fair. Of course theres a couple kids who get in because of donors, connections, etc., but these are very small minorities.

Hm I think your argument of considering historic context isn’t that great. When Asians first started coming to the US, lots of them were railroad workers treated like slaves, even now days Asians face a lot of racial discrimination (ever seen how they portrait an asian man on TV?). America is the land of opportunities, people should work for what they get. Handout will only make people look bad in the long term (how do minorities feel knowing that they might have been less qualified when getting in?)

Admissions at elite private colleges were never just about SAT scores. Harvard for example tries to admit students with the potential to become leaders in their chosen fields. Naturally that evaluation is quite subjective.

I think without numbers the way students get selected would be the same way ball players got selected before Billy Beane and Oakland As. The problem is with the metric not the method.

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