<p>Tisthetruth, AGain, as others here have argued, you don’t seem to get that they are not looking for perfect 2400s. His(the Hispanic student I described) SAT was well within their range, and he had standout ECs in three areas.</p>
<p>The bar you describe doesn’t exist. Li didn’t have those qualifications either.</p>
<p>The question is are some applicatns who are not well qualified let in because of race? And I think, from my cohort of one, that is clearly not the case. This young man was very well qualified, and was turned down.</p>
<p>The fact is, we don’t know what the bar is. It may be different for each student–not because of race, but because the complete picture of each applicant is accepted or rejected because it fits or doesn’t fit the needs of the school. The student I know was certainly equipped to succeed there, as were many other applicants who were turned down. We don’t know why each was or wasn’t.</p>
<p>OTOH, my S was accpeted to an Ivy with similarly tiny acceptance rates when he had no discernible bar-clearing trait. HIgh but not 1600-high SATs, mediocre (for that level) SAT 2s, not val, not athlete, not legacy, musical but not at the level of the student I described above, good but not great ECs, no national nothing, white.</p>
<p>I have to assume that, after qualifying on the basic cut, clearing some bar, he was picked on intangibles–his essays, his short answers, recs, interview, etc. That he liked astronomy and music and conveyed those things well, maybe. I can’t know. But it was clear that that they picked for the whole package, not what his laundry list or stats commanded, but for their grasp of who he is.</p>