It isn’t. Especially when you think about how college admissions works.
Here’s a different take on the issue. Purely on the OP’s description, which lacked a great deal of information about his classmate.
The classmate’s information was more focused than the OP’s. It was easier to picture the majors which might appeal to him. He was more than qualified to do well at any school in the country. His essays were likely better, and his recommendations were likely better. Model UN, future business leaders, newspapers…looks like a future lawyer/businessman/politician/leader.
OP, congratulations on your very strong array of talents. Which do you plan to focus on in college? Colleges do ask, “do you plan to continue with this,” don’t they? Are you a future musician, scientist, non-profit officer, lawyer, doctor? When I look at your list, I see a smart, talented guy, but did it all come together in your applications and interviews to create a memorable person the admissions officers could sum up as, “future nobel prize winner,” “future teacher,”“future lawyer?”
tl;dr… He came across as pointy, you came across as a bright, well-rounded kid. (BWRK)
You know there are many categories of diversity. i.e.Colleges want students from all 50 states. Last year a top school in my area was still looking for someone from North Dakota. Disadvantaged white, kids from Appalachia are viewed differently than prep school applicants. Also legacies can possibly have a significant advantage. But when the pitchforks come out, the complaints are focused on the Hispanics and blacks who represent a small percentage of the admits. Even an applicant with better stats than the OP is held suspect. If you look at the most important criteria for admittance for top schools you will also see personality and character listed and maybe some of that leaked into these rejected apps.
It could be big, it could be nothing Depends on where the lines are drawn at a given admissions office.
@BSMDorBust, take a look at the chart in the link you posted.
Note that most of the flagships saw an increase in URM after being forced to drop race-based affirmative action (because they put together other strategies to increase diversity). However, note that most of those schools aren’t extremely selective either.
The only 2 schools that saw a drop in both A-A and Hispanic percentages were Cal and UMich.
To the OP, I’m really sympathetic and feel bad that you didn’t get into any of your top choices. But tons of kids of all ethnicities are in the same boat, including my son, who is caucasian; but I don’t think that’s why he was not accepted at an ivy/ivy-equivalent. The reason that you, and your friend, and my son, and countless others got denied is because these schools just don’t have spots for you, plain and simple. The whole ivy game is kind of ridiculous in my view. The way I see it, if they don’t have spots for kids, they are not really the best of anything. But that’s just my opinion obviously.
The example you use with this particular URM student doesn’t work too well, because with an ACT of 35 and a good-enough gpa around 3.7, the kid falls into the same category of nearly everyone who applied including you and my son. He is a 99th percentile student, like you and my son. So the fact that he got accepted can’t really be explained by his URM status alone. You just don’t know why this guy was accepted.
I would not waste your time or energy ruminating on this…You obviously have an incredible amount of talent and intelligence, and at the end of the day, you are still a 99th percentile student who will do fantastic going forward, wherever you end up attending.
Best wishes to you! 
To answer your questions.
“Are the Ivies pushing it too far with this whole URM thing?”
No. The “URM” you describe sounds great.
“And don’t you guys think it’s hypocritical how the Ivies believe in equality when they are blatantly exhibiting unfairness in admissions?”
No. They believe in merit, only their definition of merit is different than yours.
“I will be attending a state university this upcoming fall after all the hard work I put in while this guy is able to choose from so many great options just b/c of his ethnicity.”
Cry me a river. Perhaps you should have used your intelligence to search for and apply to schools where being an Asian male is an advantage in admissions. If the only reason you worked hard in HS was to get into an Ivy, then perhaps you should reexamine your priorities. What about love of learning, desire to better the world, improve your community?
The question of whether the schools are pushing it too far in terms of the URM preference pools is a valid ones. At what point is it too far? I can tell you that in the last two years, not one single kid in three highly rated high schools (99% are apply and are accepted to a four year college while a senior) was accepted without being in a special pool for HPYC. (I took out Stanford and MIT because too few applied in that time period). Getting a look at some independent school college info that actually spells out the pools, it’s chilling. THe URM pool is only one tip of that huge iceberg. There is some resentment, have to admit. about some URMs who are academically not in the ball park as others at a school, and yes, the kids know, and who got into schools where the top kids were WLed and declined, but not as much rancor over some celeb kids who were in the same position. Like it was accepted, And those kids were not in the top academic groupings either. It’s gotten so being not in a special pool handicaps the highly academic kid, even more these days.
@cptofthehouse There are only 5000 or so spots in those four schools. Aren’t there like 35000 high schools in just the US. Add to that applicants from around the world. These private colleges can be as whimsy as they want. They don’t owe anyone. If people don’t like the way they admit then they shouldn’t apply.
If these top schools are being “watered down” by “undeserving” URMs, then why do you soooooo badly want to go there? Wouldn’t the schools below be better choices since all the “deserving” kids wound up there?
I don’t believe for a minute that the whiners REALLY think academic quality is being compromised.
^ And what about the athletes. Are they watering down the academic quality? No outrage for them.
"actually asked the Yale president at a talk point blank why Yale bothers with a alumni preference pool if, as he was saying, those legacies are so qualified that they are among the best candidates. I mean really, why do you think, they are so ided? So that they are given a DISadvantage. Of course not. He also could not come up with the number of legacy applicants and accepts, which I think he well knew or could get pretty easily. These schools refuse to give the absolute number of how much of the applicant pool go into flagged groups. "
Wow. Did you think that the Yale president “owes” you this information? Maybe it’s just not your business unless you are a member of Yale’s administration. It’s not this person’s job to satisfy your curiosity.
The most elite colleges are looking to put together a campus environment of as much diversity as possible so that students are confronted and challenged and enhanced by each other. This includes URMs, athletes, musicians, scientists, poets, leaders, funders (i.e., the people who contribute substantially to the endowment - and the connections - for the benefit of everyone), etc. I see nothing wrong with this.
People in these categories who have the highest academic stats will gain admission. Unfortunately, there are some categories of people (i.e. unhooked white and asian populations, let’s be honest) who have a lot of competition within their cohort, and yes, they will have the hardest time gaining admission. On the other hand, that hispanic with the 35 ACT probably does not face nearly as much competition in his cohort. But what do you expect these schools to do about that? If they simply allowed all of the top stats applicants in without regard to diversity or development (funding) factors, these schools would lose a lot of the spirit and environment that makes them so prized in the first place.
The one thing that seems to be the most absent from elite schools is students in the middle. No stats to back this up, but it seems to me that the URMs, athletes, etc (the “hooked” applicants) gaining admission are far more likely to be either very advantaged or very poor, and the great middle class is perhaps the most underrepresented cohort of all on those campuses.
I applaud Stanford’s recent efforts to make its education affordable to those in the middle. But of course they are hardly helping anyone really because there are so few spots at that school. Other colleges simply do not have the funding to offer such deals to the vast majority of students. It’s a conundrum.
There are 2992 other colleges in this country alone. Go to one of those or the other thousands of schools in the world.
But he probably will and he will probably do it for the the rest of his life. This is why communities insulate themselves. They see the inequities so they surround themselves with others of like minds shutting out the others because the others were given an advantage they did not have. People will move on but they won’t forget and they won’t forgive.
The best schools are the ones that accepted you and gave you the best financial aid, not the ones that don’t even want you. Wear your Harvard rejection like a badge of honor. It’s the same school that rejected Warren Buffett and accepted Ted Kaczynski, you think they know how to pick a winner?
The Ivy’s are a joke… in this day and age it’s really just luck if you aren’t a URM. My school totally got slaughtered this year 0 Ivy acceptances and every year before that the numbers have decreased while the students have just continuously become brighter. I’m sure this is the case for not just my school and it honestly disgusts me seeing students put in so much work around the country to go somewhere they could have gained admission to doing much less and actually healthily enjoying there high school experience. If you don’t think there’s a problem with this your delusional sorry…
Maybe they shouldn’t prioritize their lives based on trying to appeal to Top 20 schools?
It’s bitter and mean-spirited to belittle the Hispanics and blacks who gained admission (such as the acquaintance of the OP with a 35 ACT). There are many kids posting here from all different races and it just makes people feel crappy.
I’m not trying to put down others, I’d be glad to give up my spot at a top school to someone who is more qualified than me. But this kid isn’t very smart at all (has been in many of my AP classes and dropped out), hasn’t been stressed out during high school (hosts parties all the time, has time to play video games etc.) while I’ve put in so much effort and countless all-nighters all for a result that I could’ve gotten without any work. I wouldn’t mind at all if someone else who was in fact brighter than me (or put in even more work) took my spot, but it really bothers me that this kid did, and not only at one school but all the schools I was aiming for.