Holistic evaluation is legitimate. I'm not sure why people think raw SAT is all that should matter.
Universities basically function to stamp kids as "qualified for the middle class". Inasmuch as the USA is increasingly multicultural, it cannot have its university system exclude entire races from the middle class simply because they on average score X points less on the SAT. That's not politically tenable.
The underlying problem here is growing population and not proportionally growing seats at brand-name universities. There is really no reason that e.g. Harvard can only produce X number of "Harvard degrees" per year. I realize scarcity is part of its value, but it can still increase production and remain "proportionally scarce".
I totally think that admissions councils should strip ethnicity data when considering individual applications (versus the demographics as a whole). But I also think doing so would still result in "discriminatory results" where say the Asian kid with perfect SAT and facility at piano and violin is rejected in favor of the Black kid with a hundred points less than perfect SAT but wrote an eloquent personal statement on how he taught a Kenyan village how to code (or whatever).
I don't really like the assumption that SAT should be the sole determination in admissions.
Holistic evaluation is legitimate. I'm not sure why people think raw SAT is all that should matter.
You don't need to use strictly SAT to have an objective system in which racism is honest. Before Grutter, that's exactly what U-Mich did.
They gave you points: 20xGPA + SAT/100 + 1 for a good essay + 1-5 for extracurriculars + etc + 20 if black + 5 if woman in engineering, man in nursing.
They only dropped this system after the supreme court said they couldn't use objective systems and be racist at the same time.
Remark: After reading your points system I've recognised how happy I am for not having ever in my life to participate in any sort of that bullshit. Not having to pass (or worry about) any entry exams: priceless.
If they had stopped accounting for race, the number of black students would have dropped greatly. I remember that court decision, and it made absolutely no sense, it was something like "You can consider race as a factor, but it can't be the deciding factor for picking a student" which is nonsensical to anyone who has even a basic grasp of math.
Universities basically function to stamp kids as "qualified for the middle class". Inasmuch as the USA is increasingly multicultural, it cannot have its university system exclude entire races from the middle class simply because they on average score X points less on the SAT. That's not politically tenable.
The underlying problem here is growing population and not proportionally growing seats at brand-name universities. There is really no reason that e.g. Harvard can only produce X number of "Harvard degrees" per year. I realize scarcity is part of its value, but it can still increase production and remain "proportionally scarce".
I totally think that admissions councils should strip ethnicity data when considering individual applications (versus the demographics as a whole). But I also think doing so would still result in "discriminatory results" where say the Asian kid with perfect SAT and facility at piano and violin is rejected in favor of the Black kid with a hundred points less than perfect SAT but wrote an eloquent personal statement on how he taught a Kenyan village how to code (or whatever).
I don't really like the assumption that SAT should be the sole determination in admissions.