That was not what my post said. Nobody in this thread has claimed ratings are absolute or “he with the best ratings wins.” In fact my post explicitly said “the overall rating is not absolute.” The admit rates for unhooked kids were as follows. If it was simply “rack and stack”, then the admit rates would be 0% for anything below 2. However, instead 2s had a 66% admit rate, and the borderline 3+ kids had a 9% admit rate. A small minority of the lower rated 3+ kids were admitted over the higher rated 2 kids, for a wide variety of reasons. Nevertheless, there is a clear correlation between overall rating and admit rate.
1 Overall Rating: 100% Admit Rate
2 Overall Rating: 66% Admit Rate
3+ Overall Rating: 8.9% Admit Rate
3 Overall Rating: 1.9% Admit Rate
3- or 4: Overall Rating: <0.02% Admit Rate
It doesn’t have to be a choice between either ratings provide no meaningful information because they are not absolute, or the kids are “racked and stacked” from highest to lowest rating without any additional consideration. Instead ratings and admission results of large groups of students can provide meaningful information, by looking at patterns and abnormalities, as was done in both the UC and Harvard analyses. This is especially true when there is such extreme differences in admit rate between the high ratings (100% admit rate for 1) and low ratings (<0.01% rating for 4). For example, if one group of 4 rated kids has a <0.01% admit rate, and another group of 4 rated kids has an 80% admit rate (that may not be far off from actual for Harvard recruited athletes), then it suggests that the 2 groups are treated differently in the admission process. The Cal State Auditor appears to have found this type of evidence.