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Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information
- Overtonwindow 4y agoUniversities these days seem to contain a lot of social gangs, roaming around, looking to see where they can exert power and influence. Generally through outrage and cancelling of others. Truly, this is not what university is supposed to be.
- WhatsName 4y agoI too made that assumption before reading the article. But after reading it, that does not seem like making the wealthy the new "woke" nemesis. They much rather seek to uncover institutional corruption, where donations to a college yield better chances for your kid in getting accepted. Let's not kid ourselfs that is not a wild conspiracy or some socialist agenda. Ending corruption is in everybodies interest, except you are planing to yourself profit from that system by making strategic donations in your offsprings interest.
- paulpauper 4y agoI think cancel culture is worse at lower ranking institutions. It's hard to think of any notable recent incidents at top universities. Could be wrong.
- swarnie 4y agoDepends how you want to define "cancel culture" I can think of a few notable examples from arguably the highest ranked university, Oxford.
- yesenadam 4y agoCould you write them or link to them too? Thanks.
- swarnie 4y agoRemoval of the Queen's portrait > Postgraduate students at Magdalen College have voted to remove a portrait of the monarch based on a photograph by Dorothy Wilding, taken in 1952, at the time she was crowned. > The portrait, purchased in 2013 by students to decorate the Middle Common Room (MCR), the room that houses them, has been removed because it was an unwelcoming symbol of the UK's "recent colonial history". Something about slavery, idk > An Oxford University college has decided to keep its statue of a Barbados-born slave owner. > All Souls College has dropped the name Christopher Codrington from its library The concept of audible clapping > Representatives from the Student Union (SU) passed a motion last week to replace clapping with “jazz hands” in hopes that this will make events “more inclusive” and “accessible” for those with the mental health condition. > This comes after the University of Manchester made international headlines for passing a similar motion in September 2018. In general it seems we import a lot of cultural nonsense from other Anglo countries even if its not quite relevant.
- yesenadam 4y agoThank you!
- int_19h 4y agoI don't think it's just imports, though. I remember doing a double take after seeing this: https://archive.fo/XVGA8 https://archive.fo/XVGA8 Granted, there are certainly tankie students in US colleges - but they don't usually run official Twitter accounts of student societies endorsed by the college. It reminded me more of the kind of stuff Orwell was writing about the UK intelligentsia in 1945: "The ordinary people in the street – partly, perhaps, because they are not sufficiently interested in ideas to be intolerant about them – still vaguely hold that ‘I suppose everyone’s got a right to their own opinion.’ It is only, or at any rate it is chiefly, the literary and scientific intelligentsia, the very people who ought to be the guardians of liberty, who are beginning to despise it, in theory as well as in practice. One of the peculiar phenomena of our time is the renegade Liberal. Over and above the familiar Marxist claim that ‘bourgeois liberty’ is an illusion, there is now a widespread tendency to argue that one can only defend democracy by totalitarian methods. If one loves democracy, the argument runs, one must crush its enemies by no matter what means. And who are its enemies? It always appears that they are not only those who attack it openly and consciously, but those who ‘objectively’ endanger it by spreading mistaken doctrines. In other words, defending democracy involves destroying all independence of thought." So I think there's plenty of blame to go around on both sides of the Atlantic. ~
- mistrial9 4y agoUC Berkeley in particular has embarrassed itself and the legacy of Free Speech by hissing, screaming attacks on several individuals in public, to drown out their voices. Combine that with other very active culture-wars elements (not mentioned now) and this grand institution is now wetting the bed, so to speak.
- analog31 4y agoMy kids are both university students right now. One at the state "flagship" university, the other at a regional campus. I ask them about things that I read in the news about higher ed. Basically, they're aware of this stuff, and have opinions on it, but it hasn't really affected them.
- ffggffggj 4y agoThat’s definitely how right wing media portrays them. The reality is quite a lot more varied and nuanced. You should talk to some undergrads if you can! You may be surprised that things aren’t as you’ve been told.
- mc32 4y agoYep same about police actions. Sometimes they are in the wrong and abuse their power, but for the most part they’re doing their job, but if you listen to the media they’re at war with poor people.
- sidlls 4y agoI don’t need the media to see that. For one, I lived it as a poor person. For another, not being poor anymore, I still see it on a practically daily basis when I’m at the office.
- oneoff786 4y agoThe problem with police brutality is not that it’s commonplace, but that there are no repercussions for it. If blatantly abusive cops were held accountable the issue would not be as problematic.
- int_19h 4y agoI remember back when the PoliceOne forums were public. They eventually made it invite-only because reading that stuff for a few minutes was quite sufficient to reach this conclusion with no media in the picture. Alternatively, if you subscribe to your police / sheriff department FB or Twitter feed or whatever they have, they will often post news about training their staff at such-and-such academy or training center. Looking those places up and reading about what they teach, exactly, can be very illuminating - "killology", for example. And then there's the Fraternal Order of Police...
- mc32 4y agoOh the halcyon days when all we wanted to do was study to get good grades and get out while ignoring the partying and fun by the Greek sisterhood and brotherhood campus orgs.
- sidlls 4y agoSocial and class cliques are a real thing. The so-called networking benefits at elite schools like Princeton and Stanford don’t translate as well or as often to poor students, for example.
- mistrial9 4y agoyour bias is showing here -- guaranteed plenty of elite athletes, intellectual talents, hard workers or charismatic individuals have a whole new life after participating in those places or others.
- Barrin92 4y agoThat's literally what university has been for hundreds of years if not since medieval times. Practically any social movement or organisation of relevance can trace their roots back to an academic society largely from elite schools.
- honeybadger1 4y agoIt's always about money now.
- voisin 4y agoAlways has been.
- julienchastang 4y agoNot really. A couple of generations ago, you could attend a US state college and pay off the tuition by working summer jobs. Now, due to a long list of factors, colleges attempt to extract every nickel out of parents/students. I don't have the reference on my finger tips, but universities are employing AI algorithms to achieve this. In turn, parents have to hire consultants to get advice on bargaining the tuition price down -- in sum, an arms race.
- finitestateuni 4y agoI went to a cal state and paid 7k a year in tuition. 3 years later I am making around 300k TC at a FAANG. Everyone who graduated with me seems to be doing pretty well judging by LinkedIn.
- juve1996 4y agoIt's ludicrous to suggest that this is an easy outcome. If it were, you wouldn't be making 300k TC.
- twblalock 4y agoI know quite a few people who went to various California public colleges and universities and earn that much. In tech, it's the choice of major, not the university, that really matters -- and even companies that have policies of only hiring from certain universities tend to apply that only to new grads. I know several people who have succeeded in tech in staff+/leadership roles without any college degree at all! In law, and medicine, and academia in general? Sure, your pedigree matters. But in tech, and in many engineering fields, a state school degree is all you need.
- paulpauper 4y agoI think federal funding should be contingent on full transparency of everything. You do not get money unless everything is disclosed.
- toomuchtodo 4y agoHedge funds with a college attached aren’t beholden to federal dollars. Edit: I stand corrected, and I rescind my assertion. https://www.openthebooks.com/assets/1/7/Oversight_IvyLeagueInc_FINAL.pdf https://www.openthebooks.com/assets/1/7/Oversight_IvyLeagueI...
- lotsofpulp 4y agoThey are receiving plenty of dollars from federal taxpayer guaranteed student loans, that they otherwise would not without the government.
- pyuser583 4y agoThere’s only one reputable college in America that is free of federal funding - Hillsdale College. All the others take federal money in some way, shape, or form.
- colechristensen 4y agoLet’s be careful with this kind of thinking. I accepted federal funding in the form of student loans, should they get full transparency for everything in my life as well? I drive on federally funded roads, should they get recording devices to see and hear my every move?
- twic 4y agoIf you are receiving government support for your benefit, no. If you are receiving government support to provide benefits to others, yes.
- BuckyBeaver 4y ago[dead]
- Analemma_ 4y agoTo the people complaining about this: this is actually a very positive development that I welcome and you should too. This entire time, elite U.S. colleges have been carefully steering conversations about admissions in the direction of racial quotas, to avoid talking about how by far the largest driver of unfairness in the admissions process is legacy admissions and donation quid pro quo arrangements. If you want to make college admissions more fair, attacking those is way more bang for your buck than anything to do with race, and now some students are not falling for the distraction anymore and asking to see behind the curtain. Expect colleges to fight this much, much harder than they ever did for anything related to affirmative action, because this is actually hitting them where it hurts.
- remote_phone 4y agoI agree but I’m always wondering how admissions departments and those who are in charge benefit from donations. I understand bribery, but this is a bit different. If the money goes to universities for a donation, do people somehow get rewarded for this?
- HarryHirsch 4y agoIt's all about access - donate money, get your children into a place where they can have access to political and professional networks. That's the University of Southern California admissions scandal. More money gets you a voice in hiring committees where you can set the tone of the department and shape political discourse. The Koch brothers (those people again) did that very successfully with George Mason University when they transformed what was a commuter college into a megaphone for libertarian ideas.
- Kon-Peki 4y ago> It's all about access - donate money, get your children into a place There is also a flip side to this coin, which is why universities usually call this the “development” office. If you are going to give money away, you are very likely to give it to an organization to which you have some sort of affinity to. Universities are actively trying to cultivate that affinity so they can capture some or all of your charitable spending. And they really, really don’t want any donor to know how much they’ve been manipulated. Many people really believe that their child earned their admission letter based on merit.
- ameister14 4y agoI doubt that it helps their antitrust allegation move forward if they cannot also show that students were denied for needing financial aid, but it might shake some things loose.
- angmarsbane 4y agoIsn’t part of the benefit of getting into these universities the fact that you get to interact with people from a wealthier economic class? You have the opportunity to meet people who can invest in your ventures or who can introduce you to people who can.
- peacefulhat 4y agonot if they took your seat
- dismantlethesun 4y agoIf you dont give the wealthy an unfair seat then they will not be in that university. Instead they will be forced to go to another private school which will receive their endowments, and soon grow to the point they can compete with elite schools. Harvard, et all will still be good schools but not the "best" schools that people die to get into.
- ameister14 4y agoWhile the universities can completely do that, they can't get an antitrust exception while they do. That's the issue here, I think. The universities are colluding with one another as regards pricing and financial aid. This was allowed under an exception to antitrust law so long as financial aid played no role in admissions. The group is alleging that financial aid, or the lack of it, plays a role in admitting rich students. If that's the case, it's possible (but not anywhere close to certain) that the universities don't qualify for the antitrust exception.
- true_religion 4y agoI didn’t think universities were excepted from anti trust laws. Do you have any idea why this was permitted?
- ameister14 4y ago
- bloodyplonker22 4y agoThis is the type of equality of opportunity that is worth fighting for rather than the racist type which included acts such as affirmative action.
- BuckyBeaver 4y ago[dead]
- LarryMullins 4y agoThe last time this sort of class-awareness trend got started in America was Occupy Wall Street, and the corporate media killed it by platforming and showcasing the looniest most alienating fringes of that movement, starting the descent into the 'racist' style of progressive activism which most of the public find alienating (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/25/most-americans-say-colleges-should-not-consider-race-or-ethnicity-in-admissions/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/25/most-americ...) I think they'll do it again. If this movement finds legs and makes itself hard to ignore, then the corporate media will once again use their editorial powers to shift the conversation away from the class narrative, probably again in the direction of divisive race politics.
- bloodyplonker22 4y agoOccupy Wall street was not really about equality of opportunity. It was more about equality of outcome.
- LarryMullins 4y agoIt was about the financial industry getting bailouts while the common man suffered from economic conditions caused by the financial industry being so reckless. But then the corporate media got their hands on it and the narrative became 'these loony hippies think that people should be ranked by privilege'. Most Americans had never heard of the "Progressive stack" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_stack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_stack ) before, and this alienated the movement. In essence, the corporate media promoted intra-class war to preempt inter-class war.
- q1w2 4y agoI used to work in the admissions office of a top 5 school in the US. I was naive and initially shocked by "the list" when I was told about it. A list of applicants who were the children of faculty, staff, very large benefactors, and politicians. They could NOT be denied by any admissions councilor without a very serious reason (eg. convicted of a violent crime). I raised an eyebrow. Then I discovered that that list accounted for a full 25% of EVERY incoming class. Literally hundreds of students per year. I raised the other eyebrow. Then I realized that the constant and extreme push for diversity recruiting was to obfuscate the obvious nepotism and secrecy in admissions. The remaining part of the incoming class had to vastly overachieve diversity metrics so anyone questioning admissions or seeking transparency could be easily demonized for being <insert insult>. They will never ever EVER allow transparency in admissions.
- julienchastang 4y ago> Then I discovered that that list accounted for a full 25% of EVERY incoming class. This is open knowledge. From the WSJ, https://www.wsj.com/articles/to-get-into-the-ivy-league-extraordinary-isnt-always-enough-these-days-11650546000 https://www.wsj.com/articles/to-get-into-the-ivy-league-extr...: ``` Nearly half of white students admitted to Harvard between 2009 and 2014 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, according to a 2019 study published in the National Bureau of Economic Research. At Harvard, low-income students with top academic scores had an admit rate of 24% compared to 15% for all other applicants, according to a 2013 study by the school. Harvard has said it believes enrolling a diverse student body is important because the school wants students to learn to work with people from different backgrounds. “The middle class tends to get a little bit neglected,” said Hafeez Lakhani, a private college counselor in New York who charges $1,200 an hour. “Twenty years ago, Ms. Younger would have had a good shot at an Ivy League school.” ```
- groffee 4y agoIt's open knowledge NOW, not when OP discovered it. You clearly wouldn't get into the class.
- graphe 4y ago> The prospective class action filed last year against 17 schools alleged a price-fixing conspiracy in which schools restricted financial aid, causing a class of potentially more than 200,000 students to over-pay for tuition by tens of millions of dollars. The lawsuit survived an early bid by the schools to dismiss it. What does this mean? They didn't qualify for student aid, they qualifed and were denied, or they went to a school, saw they could have paid less and were upset?
- Spivak 4y agoOne school cuts their financial aid program, sucks but not illegal. Every school cuts their financial aid program, smells like price fixing. Students would have chosen a school with a more attractive financial aid program, which is a real effect — it’s super common to apply a bunch of similar schools and go to the one that gives you the most financial aid but the allegation is that all the programs dried up all at once and not going to college at all pretty much isn’t an option for a lot of fields. Without some kind of intervention that prevents employers using college degrees for employment decisions we’re gonna be here a while.
- lolinder 4y ago> it’s super common to apply a bunch of similar schools and go to the one that gives you the most financial aid but the allegation is that all the programs dried up all at once and not going to college at all pretty much isn’t an option for a lot of fields. Not going to one of the "elite" schools is, though, and it's not like financial aid disappeared at all the state schools. The reputational difference between the state schools and the ivy league has been narrowing a lot in recent years in response to numerous scandals like this and a lot of improvement from the state schools. Is there any reason for the government to step in here, rather than just letting the ivy league continue to destroy its reputation?
- Spivak 4y agoAssuming it’s true, I think the government should step in because price fixing is illegal, really doesn’t matter who or why, and the students who paid more because of this scheme should be compensated. And having all these schools’ names be dragged through the mud during the court proceedings will further your goal.
- AlbertCory 4y ago> Lawyers for the schools said in a court filing that the "plaintiffs' goal in pursuing such discovery is to harass and embarrass, rather than because it is relevant to their actual antitrust claim." > The defense lawyers also called the demand for admissions and development records "intrusive and burdensome." Prediction: the schools lose, and have to turn over the data. Maybe if their argument was on privacy of the donors, they'd have a chance. Saying "it's intrusive and burdensome" to ask us for this is utter BS that any judge should see through.
- jonstewart 4y agoDiscovery happens before a trial. The plaintiff gets to ask the defendant for relevant documents. This can be clearly weaponized—the plaintiff can request everything and make the defendant spend a lot of time and money on it. A common recourse is for the defense to argue the initial discovery request is overbroad and burdensome. Often there’s some negotiation but of course the judge makes the ultimate call. I won’t opine on the merits of this particular claim, but it’s a common claim. It also works both ways. The defendant can dump all sorts of papers on the plaintiff and say, “be careful what you ask for, good luck wading through this!”
- AlbertCory 4y agoYou're certainly right about the routine. If they dumped all the donors over $50,000 for the last 10 years, even on paper, I can't believe it would be that much to go through.
- jonstewart 4y agoA nice curated authoritative spreadsheet/database wouldn’t be so much data. What if such a data set doesn’t exist? What if it’s all in the email and word docs for these collegiate development and admissions departments over a decade? How do you tell it apart?
- AlbertCory 4y ago
- olliej 4y agoIt sounds like the issue isn't the wealth favoritism, it's that the colleges all explicitly state that they don't favor applicants due to wealth. The former has always been true on one level: they're expensive. The latter is presumably due to restrictions on various funding systems requiring them to not have any wealth favoritism. If the claims of the suit are true, then it's presumably trying to use proxies for wealth rather than explicitly saying "give us $$$s and we'll let you in"/
- dumbotron 4y agoThis is a problem markets can fix. The only way you get into an elite school is you donate a lot of money, you were admitted for color, or you know how to play the game. None of these abilities are things businesses should value, and I'd rather take a top student from a top state school because they're competent at the right things.
- csa 4y ago> you know how to play the game As a business owner, I value this trait highly. It’s very rare that “be highly competent” alone is enough to optimize for (ethical) success. People, including one’s customers, often have drivers other than competence (e.g., significance or likability). Knowing how to cater to those drivers while also being competent is a fairly common and consistent recipe for success.
- dumbotron 4y agoI understand why you'd value it, but the problem is these people are better at delivering on self-serving, engineered OKRs than delivering value to the company. They'll look amazing on every measurable metric, but not on the metrics that really matter. If you run a consultancy, you're right, this is exactly who you want.
- Eumenes 4y agoIs 'play the game' = be a good student?
- dumbotron 4y agoThat's part of it, but a 4.0+ and valedictorian alone doesn't get you into an ivy.
- SnowHill9902 4y agoGraduating from an elite college is tautologically wealth signaling, so why would the same interested students complain about that fact while at the same time perpetuate its significance?
- guywithahat 4y agoPart of the issue with this is that wealthy people are often wealthy because they're very smart, and being smart is in part due to genetics. So it follows that smart children will disproportionately have wealthy parents, and that will lead to more children of wealthy parents in high ranking colleges. This has been proven many times, most famously in the NLSY which surveyed thousands of kids over the course of their life, and researchers found if you adjusted for IQ you could predict a child's future income well, and you could predict which children of wealthy parents were likely to build more wealth or lose it all by looking at their IQ. Unfortunately the courts have a history of disallowing the use of IQ, viewing it as a violation of the civil rights act (see Griggs v. Duke Power Co. for more info). The colleges may be found liable of favoritism towards wealthy students, despite it most likely being the opposite. Lastly here's the article if you're also paywalled https://archive.is/PX63H https://archive.is/PX63H
- effingwewt 4y agoLol, wealthy!=smart. In fact from the ones I know personally the inverse seems true.
- smrtinsert 4y agoBefore you posted this, did you ask yourself what evidence might be used to counter your argument, as a way strengthen your position? If you were correct in your analysis, what evidence do you have as proof?
- guywithahat 4y agoThe NLSY is the classic example of this. It was a multi-decade study over thousands of people which looked at a variety of things as the kids aged into adults and through their lives. The wealth and IQ correlation was one of the results, and if you're interested in reading more I'd recommend The Bell Curve by Herrnstein and Murray, who were Harvard professors who primarily followed this study and reported the results in regards to IQ, as well as the other majors studies and their results.
- Glyptodon 4y agoIt's always been obvious the the wealthy are over represented at these schools and that "need blind" admissions somehow result in classes of overly wealthy mixed with just enough middle and lower income folks to blunt the plutocratic sheen a bit. Presumably need blind admissions skew high income to begin with just because some parts of America verge on third world and illiterate without even taking other factors into account, but I also have to assume their financial aid practices are carefully designed, perhaps with full US government support (FAFSA is a hilarious thing in many respects), to further distill out an appropriately wealthy distribution of admits. The fact that government money and aid can go to these schools that are so instrumental in the creation and sustenance of elites has always been a farcical betrayal of the democratic ideal. Very curious how far they've gone to prevent documentation of the kinds of things plaintiffs would know doubt like to know from ever existing to begin with.
- xmddmx 4y agoThis is one of those complex topics which on HN, seesm to lead to "it's simple, do X" types of analyses, which tend to be simple, confident, and wrong. Some facts to consider: At Harvard, over 40% of non-minority students received special treatment for admissions (which includes factors such as being a legacy, athlete, or the 'dean's list' which was a list of high donating parents). 75% of those would not have been admitted w/o that help. I think this lawsuit is trying to pierce this veil. [1] For those that argue "meritocracy" and that standardized testing is the answer: the SAT has a correlation of about r=0.3 to 0.5 with first year college GPA. Thus, the explained variance (r*2) is about 9% to 25%, meaning as much as 81% of college success is not statstically predicted by the SAT. [2] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/17/harvard-university-students-smart-iq https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/17/harvar... [2] https://satsuite.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/national-sat-validity-study-overview-admissions-enrollment-leaders.pdf https://satsuite.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/national-sat-val...
- fsckboy 4y ago> 75% of those would not have been admitted w/o that help this not making a claim anywhere near as interesting as it pretends. Since you're using a %, what is the % difference in quality that admitting these 75% makes (assuming it's even true, considering I don't believe much from the Guardian) and how does that (what the author calls "affirmative action") compare with other affirmative actions taken to achieve a balanced class? were they otherwise 99% good enough, or only 10% good enough? My money is on above 90% because I went to an elite school (that has no legacy) and lots of people there were extremely highly qualified, and the ones who weren't did not fall in a pattern of being wealthy or whatever, probably better explained by something like your evidence of how ineffective IQ (what SAT does correlate to) or high school grades are in predicting college GPA and how effective GPA is or isn't in predicting future contributions. I find grades have much more to do with psychological makeup, like do you rebel against authority, or knuckle under. Good grades are valuable, but don't tell the whole story of your value as a contributor, sometimes screwed up and crazy genius works better. But either way, shouldn't that be up to the school what combinations they wish to place their bets on?
- 4y ago
- musicale 4y agoAs I understand it, most "elite" universities give special consideration to the children of parents who make large donations, in order to encourage such donations. Is this not well known? I have heard a couple of arguments in favor of the practice: 1) It brings more money into the university (most important reason for the university) 2) It enables the university to admit and educate a larger number of students than it could otherwise afford to (potentially pro-social reason)
- FrontierPsych 4y agoThey are private universities, why does it matter in the first place? Should Catholic seminaries be forced to admit islamic students? Jeff Bezos has a $150 million house in Los Angeles, should he be forced to allow the homeless to live there? There are a lot of other universities. But if we are going to be strict about it, then it should be strict. We have to look at the exact makeup of every single group of people in the USA and make everything is exact. So that means Jewish students should make up only 2% of elite schools, Catholics should make up 22% of the student body, 1.1% should be muslims, 14% of students must be black, hispanics must be 18.7%, 58% must be white, 7.2% of students Asian and of course must divide it more and more. We have to figure out how many left handed students must be allowed to be in elite universities, how many with crooked vs straight teeth. This is all wonderful stuff. Of course at universities, 50% should be men and 50% should be women. Right now, 60% of students are women and 40% are men, universities must stop admitting so many women, that is very clear. Universities should only allow 50/50. At the premier public university of UC Berkeley, 36% are Asian and so that must be adjusted downwards to 7.2%. 23.8% of Cal Berkeley students are white, so of course, the white student population must be increased to 58%. A lot less Asians should be admitted. At UCLA, 58.6% are women, so that has to come down so it is 50%. 28% of the student body are Asian, so that has to come down to 7.2%. White are 26.3% so that has to be adjusted up to 58%. Hispanics are 22.6%, that has to come down to 18.7%. Of course, this must happen at every single university. I am starting to see how this game should be played now.
- yodsanklai 4y ago> They are private universities, why does it matter in the first place? It's not because something is private that suddenly no regulations apply. Regarding universities, I don't think the issue is that some category is over-represented, but the fairness of the admission process. That being said, with affirmative action, the admission process is already biased and isn't on academical merit alone.
- FrontierPsych 4y ago>It's not because something is private that suddenly no regulations apply. So you're saying that Catholic seminaries are required to admit muslims that want to become imams, and therefore the Catholic seminaries will be required to start a islamic department to train muslims to become imams? (rhetorical question). So as far as the fairness of the admission process goes, all applicants should apply with no name, race, creed, or any type of way to identify who and where someone comes from? Do away with essays as they are super easy way to identify the background of an applicant? Pure test scores only? I totally disagree with your saying that the issue isn't with some categories are over-represented. That's just not the case at all.