4 ms·

Essays were originally instituted to give admissions staffs an excuse to keep out Jews and other minorities. Whereas now they only use them to keep out whites

• brandnewlow 17y ago
  Now, as before, they're used to inject subjectivity into a process that could just as well be based on tests and grades alone. The problem with the purely objective approach is you'd go from having a 40% minority campus to having about 2-3%. That's a political problem.
  • araneae 17y ago
    It depends on what you mean by minority. As hughprime said, most schools restrict the number of Asians they admit. Cornell has a much higher percentage of Asian students and a much lower percentage of African American students than the other Ivies, and it's no coincidence.