<p>According to a New Yorker article, Harvard’s (and then other elites) admissions interviews were instituted to weed out Jews whose names didn’t reveal their ethnicity. Harvard (and other Ivies) wanted a class that reflected its values: tall, athletic, white, Christian, preppy etc. </p>
<p>Although things have changed in that Asians are now experiencing the bias that was once reserved for Jews, I can’t imagine that there would be more than a few institutions (taking into account and accepting the validity of the posters example of Vanderbuilt) at which being Jewish would be an advantage.</p>