<p>Another side of this argument that was mentioned only in passing is “What opportunities did Applicant X realistically have to succeed?” In addressing that, you can only argue so much about race and gender without coming back to the age-old “public vs. private” debate. I personally know several BRILLIANT math students who attended and graduated high schools without ever hearing about the AMC or the AIME or USAMO. It is no real reflection on them or their abilities, but it presents a difficult situation to an admissions officer. Who actually is more talented and more likely to succeed - the kid who did well but not amazingly well on such tests, or the kid who never took them at all? Same with the SATs - the kid who was most likely groomed and trained and all but forced into doing well on them, or the kid with a slightly lower score who may possibly have take the test completely cold without even knowing what would be on it ahead of time? In answer to this, I would argue that I can see taking a student who has maximized a weaker public school over another who was given all the opportunities of a nice school and only somewhat succeeded with them. But in terms of pure numbers and names on the application, the private school student is “more qualified.” My point is simply this - pure meritocracy would be a disaster.</p>
<p>Meritocracy doesn’t mean excluding the past from consideration. Knowing how high is the box on which someone is standing is important for estimating their height. Meritocratic does not mean monofactorial.</p>
<p>The real question is whether race or gender alone is a good way of estimating someone’s disadvantages.</p>
<p>See post #2 [url="<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=85282"]here[/url">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=85282"]here[/url</a>] for my original take on this.</p>
<p>Perhaps I missed it, but did someone here state or imply that “race or gender alone is a good way of estimating someone’s disadvantages”? Or that (to bring it back on-point) MIT uses these characteristics in that way?</p>
<p>Well, my original claim was that based on my observations over a long time and from many perspectives, there are – not too infrequently – times when A is clearly better, disadvantages and context taken into account, than B, but B is admitted while A is not. Almost always, the tip factor for B is some minorityness.</p>
<p>But you’re right that I should have spoken more clearly. All I meant to say is that I understand meritocracy is not the same as IIT-style monofactorial admissions, and I was never claiming that merit is diagnosed by one thing only.</p>
<p>(But note that this makes it a lot harder for me, because now people can just take issue with my judgment. Whereupon I again exclaim that at some point I have to start believing what I see with my eyes, the exclamations of the emperor’s court notwithstanding.)</p>
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<p>It’s not, which is why I decided to make my government term paper on the subject of AA, argueing that race/gender based AA is wrong and illegal, all AA should be based on economic situations.</p>