An excellent question. In practice, that's not who we select. One college in the Midwest I know of selected 1) kids related to alumni, 2) people of a certain r

An excellent question. In practice, that's not who we select. One college in the Midwest I know of selected 1) kids related to alumni, 2) people of a certain religion, 3) people who would add to the sports and music programs, 4) kids of color with good grades and high SAT scores, and last 5) people who didn't fit the above, especially from California, Texas, or Florida, who could pay full tuition. A major goal at some small colleges is balancing kids who will pay full price and kids who will do well at college, which creates a funny situation where you've got a well off heavy-majority-white party crowd with low test scores and a smaller and more diverse group of subsidized kids who bring many academic and non-academic talents (the music/sports/math/science/high school leadership crowd that may not have well-off parents).