The letter in last Sunday's Post intitled "Base college admissions on merit. Period." had a title I agree with but that is not exactly what the writer said. He merely said we should get rid of race-based admission. Unfortunately people who rail against affirmative action as race/ethnic based only are missing all the other forms of "affirmative action" colleges practice. All colleges aim at diversity based on location of the student's home- private schools because they want their students to come from all over the country, public schools because they must admit a certain percentage of in-state students but want out-of-state tuition money. Universities with big sports programs and sports scholarships will favor a star athelete over a star academic. Private universities give prefence to legacies. All colleges like foreign students because they pay full tuition and don't qualify for scholarships. Unless all these forms of "affirmative action" are also eliminated it doesn't bother me that colleges also look at someone's race when determining admissions; it's only one factor of many.
It is also difficult to prove that someone was admitted instead of you because of race as the woman from Texas is claiming. Even if one is admitted based on merit only other factors are used to determine admission besides one's high school grades and SAT scores. Extracurriculars, leadership positions, volunteer work and your admissions essay are all factors. Someone who started a charity and raised thousands of dollars to help orphans in Africa is going to get admitted over someone with slightly better grades for instance. Only if your rejection letter specificly says that we admitted the Hispanic student or the basketball player instead of you can you know if that is the reason for your rejection.
