> I recently saw one child into college, and have another on the way. I've spoken to many admissions officers, counselors, and similar folks making admissions c

> I recently saw one child into college, and have another on the way. I've spoken to many admissions officers, counselors, and similar folks making admissions choices for public and private universities. > To a one, they all claim to be looking for two things: (1) students who will succeed at their university, and (2) a diverse range of students to avoid a monoculture. > This means they try to look at the "whole student." In the 1920s, "look at the whole student" meant "exclude Jews". In fact, the whole modern "holistic" admissions process was brought into being to exclude Jews [1]. And the "holism" of the process was instrumental to creating the desired racial bias, as "holism" affords tremendous room for subtle biases to entrench themselves. This persists today in Harvard's "personal rating" bias against Asians, which launders anti-Asian bias out to the wider society that rates those students. I do not think that admissions officers are hellbent on racial exclusion today, but I also do not think that admissions officers can be trusted to describe the full nature and biases of their processes. [1] https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/dobbin/files/2007_asq_karabel.pdf https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/dobbin/files/2007_asq_kara...