Most of that shit was designed (originally) with racist intent. I don't think modern admissions committees are racist; at this point, it's more of a "how things

Most of that shit was designed (originally) with racist intent. I don't think modern admissions committees are racist; at this point, it's more of a "how things were always done" dynamic, and it's taken for granted that nonacademic factors should have a huge influence over college admissions. (One problem is that grade point averages aren't standardized and the SATs don't go high enough for as competitive as college admissions are. The bullshit gets such a high weight because so many students are 2400/valedictorians, now that admissions are a national pool with many students submitting 20+ applications.) Admissions tests (such as the SATs) made college admissions "too" meritocratic in the 1920s-30s and prep-school boys started losing spots to ethnically diverse applicants from public schools. For example, student bodies went from 0-3% to 20-25% Jewish in a year. Many of the professors and administrators welcomed the change (the quality of students improved) but wealthy donors went into race panic and demanded that WASP-biased extracurricular factors (what would be called "pattern matching" in modern VC-istan) be injected back into the process.