> Everyone believes this. Based on the replies I get here and elsewhere (I beat this drum a lot since I think many people have such in accurate perceptions), m

> Everyone believes this. Based on the replies I get here and elsewhere (I beat this drum a lot since I think many people have such in accurate perceptions), many people still think that grades and scores are the primary determining factor in elite school admissions, apparently with a dose of racism thrown in to hold down groups who are good at grades and scores. I get very few people who really embrace the idea of “the hook” (link below) and try to learn more about it. I’m imagining because it’s hard and not concrete — that is, there is no formula to create a good hook and there are few litmus tests to know if your hook is good enough. https://www.hispanicoutlook.com/articles/15-tips-minority-students-get-accepted-ivy-league- https://www.hispanicoutlook.com/articles/15-tips-minority-st... > You think Asians are in some way on average inferior in a way that’s obvious to admissions staff but not to alumni interviewers. Yes, I trust the staff to have a better idea of where all applicants (including Asians) fit into the total applicant pool versus the alumni interviewers. If I had to take a guess, I’m guessing that bias in personal score (for all people, not just Asians) impacted fewer than 20 applicants at Harvard last year. Maybe fewer than 10. There are strong efforts to combat rater bias in the process. One of the Supreme Court justices asked why that score was used if it mattered so little. The short answer is that really strong scores probably got straight admitted, really weak scores got straight denied, and the marginal candidates are selected based on a number of variables (so this score would be just one of those). Said another way, finding bias that is going to make a few percent of failing applicants have a slightly better failing score is something that should be looked into (mainly to see if it impacts marginal candidates), but it’s not going to change the admission status of those candidates. In Harvard terms, if the personality score is in a very low category, bumping it up one notch doesn’t make any difference. Any time spent on fine tuning one failing rating in a failing application is inefficiently used time, and these folks are on a clock.