Elite-College Admissions Are Broken (The Atlantic monthly)

[ucbalumnus]

@Twoin18

In the case of universities the exclusivity could be created purely on intellectual grounds (viz Oxbridge) and I doubt there would be as much perception of unfairness in that case (though there are certainly some complaints in the UK). Even if it was created on financial grounds I suspect there wouldn’t be as many complaints (say they auctioned off the places at Harvard to qualified candidates). The problem in the US is that the exclusivity is created by a more opaque process and as a result there is plenty of opportunity (whether justified or not) to claim unfairness.

The reason for the perception of unfairness or corruption is that admission to elite colleges, and the commonly perceived basis of seeing them as elite, is perceived to be supposed to be based on intellectual-based earned merit, but that it is seen as being corrupted by other factors (including characteristics not earned by the student), hiding in an opaque holistic process.