> Until recently you would not be correct; the covert way that elite schools did AA would disqualify lots of Asian applicants who DIDN'T have extraordinary test scores and coursework.

Please don’t spread propaganda.

I’ve seen admissions evolve over decades. Your take strikes me as very uninformed and shaped by certain agenda-driven media narratives.

A generous interpretation supporting your thesis is that AA spots took away spots from very marginal asian and white students. Marginal asian and white admits even at Harvard are usually not terribly impressive, such that I’m not sure that this trade is a loss for the school or the student body.

An interpretation that doesn’t support your thesis is that the admissions process at elite schools put a tremendous amount of value on community involvement for AA candidates.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the latter is discrimination. I’m not a lawyer, so maybe it is, but I don’t think I’ve ever met an AA candidate that wasn’t bringing something else quite compelling to the table. That said, I’ve met plenty of asian and white marginal admits that did not bring much to the table (student: “woohoo, I study a lot” me: “yes, you do, and you’re bad at it”).

People act like so many deserving asians and/or whites were denied spots due to AA, when the reality is that the folks who theoretically “lost” a spot were already so marginal that admission was a bit of a crapshoot anyway. They would have just been warm bodies used to fill out the class with very low expectations of contributing to the school or the community. Snarky take, but that’s the reality.