The US Department of Justice has found what has been common knowledge for decades, namely, that US universities discriminate against white and especially Asian-American candidate students, holding them to a higher standard. Because of the consistently higher academic achievements of these two groups, to prevent them from becoming over-represented in the student body, higher test scores are required from them than from students coming from groups with traditionally lower academic performance. To motivate the rejection of academically excellent Asian-American applicants, they are given lower scores in the "personality" assessment. To me, all this is textbook racism, yet it is defended as struggle against "systemic racism", whatever this is to mean.
I find this system mind-boggling. In my country, elite universities recruit their students by anonymous written examinations (high school grades are also taken into account, but are given less importance, because it is known that many bad schools grade their students generously). Gender quotas are used for all prestigeous study fields that would otherwise become feminized, but there are no racial or ethnic quotas. So we have proportionally fewer minority students, but the ones that make it into (and out of) the university are as good as those from the majority. My experience shows that this system works well. I'd recommend it to everyone (and I think it would be even better without the gender quotas). At least public universities, and also private ones if they use public funds, should not be allowed to discriminate based on race, ethnicity, personality traits, or any other non-academic criteria.
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It's not just race, ethnicity or personality that is taken into account in admission to private colleges. There are other factors. You yourself admit that there are gender quotas for the most prestigious majors. Why should a university care about study fields becoming feminized? Let young men compete on equal ground and I am sure the ones admitted will be fewer, but just a good as the women. How is it normal and meritocratic?
To answer your question, and take just Harvard as the example, it admits students based on personality and many other factors because it aims at being the university for future leaders and grades alone are not the best predictor of how well one will do in their future work. On the contrary, highest achievers in terms of grades tend to be bookish personalities, not leaders in any field or way, and frankly may not even succeed in their future profession, let alone be leaders. Also, a significant value in selecting the class is the community created on campus. One of the most important learning processes in college is learning from each other and establishing life-long relationships. So it's important to have interactions and experiences with people from a variety of backgrounds and interests, not just racial or ethnic. Academically, it's important to give higher evaluation to the applicant who has achieved a lot even though he/she had access to little resources, as it shows better abilities and intelligence, rather than an applicant who had everything needed for success through wealthy parents and just didn't even have the chance to fail. Caude yhese people usually fail eventually. Also, a significant percentage of admitted applicants to Harvard are children of alumni (legacy candidates) and donors. I'll let you draw your own conclusion on why...
1) As I have already stated, I don't think that the university should care about study fields becoming feminized, and I am against gender quotas.
2) I find mind-boggling the arrogance with which admission committees at universities such as Harvard think that they can select future leaders based on SUBJECTIVE criteria.
Where is your evidence that "highest achievers in terms of grades tend to be bookish personalities, not leaders in any field or way, and frankly may not even succeed in their future profession, let alone be leaders"? I find this textbook prejudice rigorously planted by rich, well-connected underachievers. This way, they convince the society to give them cart blanche to screw talented and hard-working people. Actually, a common argument for gender quotas is that girls are more bookish and therefore earn higher grades and, unless gender quotas are used, they would outcompete the more intelligent boys.
I fully agree that it is important to evaluate highly "the applicant who has achieved a lot even though he/she had access to little resources" (we have scholarships and tuition fee waivers for such students). My problem is with opening the gates of elite universities to applicants who have NOT achieved a lot, and give no signs that they are likely to achieve a lot in the future.
As for legacy candidates, they are a plague with no easy cure.
Oh,it's not arrogance at all. It's their choice after all. Beside that, there is a lot of scholarly work done on leadership and its potential. See John Antonskis' work for example, but also many business publications write about it since it's a hot topic in management. Also, leadership qualities have had a lot of occasions to be demonstrated by a young person by the time of their college application, like initiative, emotional intelligence, courage, etc. Are you arguing that grades on tests are a better indicator? Tests are as limited, arbitrary and as subjective, if not more, as other indicators and only give some illusion of clarity pretending to be quantifiable. Standardized test taking is the easiest thing to drill a student for, given resources, so it really doesn't show real academic achievement or aptitude. On the contrary,this is where wealthy families have the highest chance to groom their otherwise unqualified offspring as academically prepared. Ultimately, for a university that admits only 5% of its applicants, the majority of candidates are actually super qualified. All of them have achieved a lot, half of them are valedictorian, and if only score points are taken into account, the difference between candidates would be minuscule that it wouldn't have any real significance. I am glad that disadvantaged students in your country get scholarships, but that's the case for Harvard as well; to get a scholarship a student has to be admitted first, right? As about legacy, the cure is easy: don't use it as a criterion. Interestingly though, there is no lawsuit against that - and legacy is a much bigger factor of acceptance.
Money alone cannot drill a student very much. This is known to all who have taught children of rich people. We are not born with our intellectual abilities, but we are definitely born with the ceiling of our intellectual abilities, and no money can move it up. If it could, rich people would fight tooth and nail for meritocratic university admission, and would hire the best tutors to prepare their children.
They do not. Instead, they have installed the legacy system. They take part in schemes such as that exposed by Operation "Varsity Blues". And in places based on a meritocratic system, they invent tricks to bypass it, such as enrolling their children at another university and then transferring.
The legacy system at least seems to secure some flow of money to the university, while diversity-based admission only brings more problems.
The standardized admission tests are not about intellectual abilities. They are based on specific test taking strategies that can be very much drilled. And yes, rich people do hire the best tutors. The college application process is a big industry with million-dollar college advising companies, consultants, tutors, test trainers etc that work with their candidates for years. It seems you are not very familiar with the US college application practices. As I said, children of wealthy families don't even have the option to fail; they are groomed and practically ensured that from the get go. Again though, the point is different. Universities, especially private ones, have determined that college education is not just drilling or exam taking but it's learning from peers with diverse background as much as from professors, it's establishing a community of peers. College admission is seen as the first step in building that community and that's why personality and background as well as engagement with others is taken into account.
The current row over Harvard student organization loudly and proudly supporting Hamas terrorists and blaming Israel for being attacked illustrates my point well. The "well-rounded" "future leaders" who were admitted to this vaunted indoctrination center turned out to have little intellect and no integrity.
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