<p>[Quotas</a> have been ruled not just illegal but unconstitutional, mate.](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regents_of_the_University_of_California_v._Bakke]Quotas”>Regents of the University of California v. Bakke - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>You will not be happy here if you take the attitude that there are two categories of people here: those who deserved to get in (aka not legacies, URMs, or athletes) and people who didn’t (legacies, URMs, athletes). I know some very clever athletes, and valuing the drive it takes to excel at sports is not really that different than valuing the drive it takes to excel at community service. And then a majority of both legacies and URMs who attend here would have gotten in without that tip, if every other portion of their application was the same. That attitude can also get you into some awkward situations, like when this prefrosh was walking around my room talking about “haha the z-list, that was so stupid, what a joke that Harvard had created an innovation to save people who only got in because of who their parents were, but otherwise absolutely no right to be there.” Yeah, that was a great move considering one of my roommates had been z-listed and was watching this all go down. (Nor was she a legacy or somebody with extremely wealthy parents.)</p>