<p>Grover: sophisticated college admissions don’t just “add SAT points” to certain sub groups. The practice what’s called “category admissions” which is explained in the bottom third of this essay:</p>
<p>[Reed</a> College | Admission | Reed College Admission Office](<a href=“http://www.reed.edu/apply/news_and_articles/admission_messages.html]Reed”>http://www.reed.edu/apply/news_and_articles/admission_messages.html)</p>
<p>The fact is colleges want a certain mix of students. Internationals, women, minorities, science majors, musicians, theater people, athletes, celebrities, etc. And they will allocate soft quotas to try to meet those goals. The kid who is offered a scholarship to play volleyball doesn’t take away the spot of the science major applicant from Los Angeles – that slot was never open in the first place. The LA kid, who doesn’t fall into one of the sub categories competes with others in the “general” category. And it can work out where some sub categories’ average SATs/ACTs are higher or lower than others.</p>
<p>Would you expect the avg SATs of hockey players admitted to Harvard to be lower than the “unhooked” applicants’ pool? Yep.</p>
<p>But that last hockey player who gets in – who does he keep out? The hockey player with lesser grades/SATs and potential. The black kid who gets in pushes out another black kid with lesser grades/SATs and potential. The Asian pianist never competing for the hockey player’s spot or the slot allocated to a black student.</p>