I have mixed feelings about this. The issue is that there aren't enough elite seats, maybe applying to those schools is a good idea because it starts to create

I have mixed feelings about this. The issue is that there aren't enough elite seats, maybe applying to those schools is a good idea because it starts to create more elite seats. I seriously doubt there would be a serious detriment to your son's education for going to Harvey Mudd for example. I think that the subtext here is the brand name of Stanford and MIT and the Ivies is very desirable and this is less about education. The brand is real though. Those top tier schools are gateways to power and money. I read through the law suit made against Harvard and other schools and it blames white people, not affirmative action in general. It compares the test scores of white people against Asians and argues that there should be fewer white people. The % of Harvard that is white is 33%. The % of the US is 57.5%. Whites are being shut out of the premier gateways to power in the US. I think AA based on race makes sense in some way because of what these schools mean in reality. It's not just about education. The test score gap between Asians and whites is not even very broad. So on the one hand, I think all this focus on race is detrimental to life if we use it to judge the most elite people in the country. On the other hand, I think this lawsuit is just more squabbling between races to be the #1. This is a fight about prestige and power and not education, at least in my opinion.