Why Elite Colleges Do Affirmative Action For the Rich
There are more high-school graduates qualified to attend an elite American college than there are admissions slots at such schools. As a result, our nation’s top universities must perennially find ways of distinguishing meritorious applicants who are worthy of admission from equally meritorious applicants who are not. One way they’ve done this is to take equity into account. Faced with an applicant from a comfortable middle-class background and another equally qualified applicant who grew up in poverty, universities have tended to favor the latter. Similarly, top schools have historically used membership in an underrepresented racial or ethnic group as a tiebreaker. But the Supreme Court recently ruled that those sorts of racial preferences violate the Constitution.
But equity is not the only tiebreaking factor in elite university admissions. It’s just the one that such schools are most interested in talking about. Coming from a humble background can help your application a little. Coming from an exorbitantly wealthy family, however, will help it a lot.
