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<p>Common sense dictates that you take look once in a while at your selection process. People’s self-disclosure today allows a chance to do it in a different way.</p>
<p>If I were doing it in this context, my starting place would be the intersection of the greatest financial support from the university and the most marginal academic kids. From there I’d move to the rest of the most marginal academic admits, and probably not make it too far. I might do it for anyone from a group that generates a bunch of griping from outsiders…probably affirmative action admits, athletes, and legacies. Those are the individuals that have the greatest potential to embarrass you. And I guess I might add the students from the most publicly prominent families, since they will attract a lot of negative press attention if they somehow get into trouble. </p>
<p>I seriously doubt, though, if they would do more than a couple dozen of these in any case. It’s too tedious and is likely to turn up ambiguous results. My guess is that some of the results likely to turn up already coincide with some of the material in recommendation letters and available by phone from school guidance counselors. </p>