This article reports on "a blockbuster new study finds that America's elite private colleges are systematically giving huge advantages to rich kids over their equally bright, yet less privileged peers." This advantage is not only conferred by legacy admissions, which account for about 46% of the benefit wealthy students enjoy, but also by athletics (24%), especially in nice (and expensive) sorts (like equestrian), and by higher non-academic ratings, like extracurricular activities and compelling letters of recommendation (30%). The article suggests college redress the imbalance by dropping non-academic factors and by selecting from lower-achievement zip codes, because students in those codes would have had to work that much hard to achieve the same SAT score. I would note that while this story focuses on the U.S., selective advantage is enjoyed by the wealthy worldwide, including in countries that profess to b much more egalitarian. And the answer isn't to change the balance, but to ensure access to all.
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