@Nerdyparent “race blind” implies that race or ethnicity does not impact the education of a student. Ask any minority student, rich or poor and we will tell you that the color of our skin has impacted our everyday life and subsequently, our education.
I don’t see why everyone complains. At a typical elite university EVERYONE is impeccably intelligent. Regardless of race, regardless of income and regardless of ethnicity (except for maybe that developmental case). This comes back to how we measure intelligence. Test scores and grades are not necessarily a good measure. There is such a thing as physical genius, for example.
That being said, a typical University consists of about 40% white, 20% Asian, about 12% Hispanic and no more than 10% black with an other category and a ridiculously small Native American population. Whites and Asians are always the two largest majorities. At UPenn Asians are 27%!
No matter how you look at it, Whites and Asians are still being admitted at high proportions. They simply have a crap ton of applicants. Whereas a majority of blacks and Latinos NEVER even apply to begin with, how is that for racial equality? Many black and Latino families tell their children that education is not important because they will never be able to pay for it anyways. Many black and Latino students never recover their passion for education after that teacher asks them in front of the whole class if their father is involved in their live or if their parents are illegal. Many black and Latino students don’t apply to top schools because they have spent their whole lives being treated like they belong on the bottom. Their whole lives being treated like they are suspicious, like they don’t belong in those AP classes and like their education is less important because people assume that they aren’t going anywhere anyways.
Holistic admissions is not about race. Affirmative action is about race. Even so, I am really tired of the assumption that is in some way easier for minority applicants. Harvard does not admit anyone who has not worked their a** off. Yale does not accept anyone who is not highly intelligent. Stanford is not interested in a student who is not highly invested in their community. I am not interested in a school that does not practice holistic admissions because I want to go to a school that admits people, not test scores. There is a reason why all the top schools practice this policy, because it results in the most capable and functional class.