Yes, unfortunately in the US we have legacy admissions and athletic admissions without much oversight on how athletically talented the student is. "A study, pu

Yes, unfortunately in the US we have legacy admissions and athletic admissions without much oversight on how athletically talented the student is. "A study, published earlier this month in the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that 43 percent of white students admitted to Harvard University were recruited athletes, legacy students, children of faculty and staff, or on the dean’s interest list — applicants whose parents or relatives have donated to Harvard. That number drops dramatically for black, Latino, and Asian American students, with less than 16 percent each coming from those categories. The study also found that roughly 75 percent of the white students admitted from those four categories, labeled 'ALDCs' in the study, “would have been rejected if they had been treated as white non-ALDCs,” the study said."[1] We are already aware that the current admissions policy has the effect of heavily and unfairly favoring wealthy white students. Then we try to "correct" for that. For some reason we talk about and fret a lot more about policies that tip the scales for minorities, but for legacy admissions it's just "how things are done". In my opinion if a university uses legacy admissions, they should be barred from receiving federal funding. When JHU stopped using legacy admissions, the number of minority students increased. It would be interesting to know if the number of nonwealthy white students increased as well. My point is, there is clear favoritism for the wealthy class, and at least one easy fix (drop legacy admissions) to get towards a more merit-based system. [1]https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/study-harvard-finds-43-percent-white-students-are-legacy-athletes-n1060361 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/study-harvard-finds-43-...