<p>Citation, there's a move afoot to look at socioeconomic status as much or more than ethnicity, and some schools already do so. They also look at geographic residence, the quality of the school attended, and other issues that affect access to opportunties. But ethnicity will probably still be considered for URMs because, even when they have access to opportunities, there is often institutionalized racism within those opportunities that they have to overcome. </p>
<p>Who wins awards, what grades you get on assignments, who gets the best recommendation letters, etc., can be very subjective, and influenced by all sorts of factors. For example, it's been shown that men rate women's math papers a whole point lower than if they think the paper is done by a man. When my neice (who is white BTW, as am I) began attending an elite private school on scholarship in 4th grade, several of the teachers and parents made a big deal about how they didn't want a "public school kid" in their midst, and she was treated badly in the classroom the first couple of years. Imagine how much worse it would have been had she been a URM. </p>
<p>If not for these types of efforts, unconcious prejudice would probably cause qualified candidates to be turned away by colleges for no reason other than stereotypes. Once when my D. was visiting a college (Summer of 2000), she was told by an adcom that "being from Louisiana doesn't mean that you won't get in, but you'll have to work a lot harder. Try to win a national championship in something." The adcoms' point was that coming from Louisiana, a state with historically poor schools, anything she accomplished was suspect unless it got external validation.</p>
<p>I hope you will try to keep an open mind about affirmative action. Neither of us is in a position to dictate to Harvard or MIT how to run their schools--unless you've donated a building or something and forgotten to mention it.</p>