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a large number of students admitted on non-academic criteria like recruited athletes, legacies, and URM's
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<p>i guess harvard's academic standards just aren't high enough for your hypothetical student even if he could get admitted there -- he just wouldn't be completely surrounded with the type of student he seeks. too many of those non-academic admits. wouldn't want to be going to a school with all those non-intellectual harvard athletes and urm's who must not be top 1% like your hypothetical student.</p>
<p>you still can't get past the fact that you want to claim you aren't relying on sat's but you keep falling back on sat's as the measure of your criteria. you've made up a phantom measure of top 1% and then complain because others don't adhere to that phamton measurement. YOUR hypthetical student is clearly in the top 1% -- but CLEARLY too many other non-top 1%'s are being admitted for non-academic reasons thereby dimishing your hypothical student's chances -- truth is you have no way of concluding who is or isn't top 1% unless you rely on sat's which you've already conceded is not what you are doing.</p>