What did SFFA vs. Harvard reveal about admissions?
5 hours ago
- #meritocracy
- #college-admissions
- #educational-inequality
- The chance for a domestic student at a given academic percentile to gain admission and pay for an elite university has drastically decreased over the past fifty years due to zero-sum admissions.
- Admissions are segmented into lanes with varying odds; for example, recruited athletes have a significantly higher admission rate compared to unhooked domestic applicants.
- A counterfactual model from the Harvard trial showed that swapping race on an applicant profile could increase admission probability from 25% to 95%, indicating race-based adjustments in admissions.
- The real cost of attendance is determined through price discrimination via aid formulas, often hitting upper-middle-class families hardest due to steep marginal rates and asset assessments.
- Admission disparities exist across groups: Asian and international students see expanded representation at elite tiers, while some domestic groups shrink, revealing non-neutral admission practices.
- Hooks like legacy and athletics reduce the number of merit-based seats for unhooked applicants within the same group, creating a paradox where privileged groups face squeezed merit pipelines.
- Test-optional policies and holistic 'context' evaluations disadvantage high-scoring, unhooked applicants from rigorous schools, undermining traditional merit signals.
- The combination of reserved seats, holistic filtering, variable pricing, and demographic targets compounds to disadvantage strong domestic students, turning admission into a lottery with unaffordable costs.