While affirmative action is about to get torn apart by the Supreme Court, other preferential treatment in college admissions goes uncontested. You know, the kind that favors white kids.
This shocking—but totally logical—passage comes from The Price Of Admission by Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Daniel Goldkin:
The number of whites enjoying preference far outweighs the number of minorities aided by affirmative action. At least one third of the students at elite universities, and at least half at liberal arts colleges, are flagged for preferential treatment in the admissions process. While minorities make up 10 to 15 percent of a typical student body, affluent whites dominate other preferred groups: recruited athletes (10 to 25 percent of students); alumni children, also known as “legacies” (10 to 25 percent); development cases (2 to 5 percent); children of celebrities and politicians (1 to 2 percent); and children of faculty members (1 to 3 percent).
These estimates might be conservative. Robert Birgeneau, chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley, told me that he once calculated the proportion of admission spaces open to "regular students' at one Ivy League university, which he declined to name. His startling conclusion: students without any nonacademic preferences are vying for only 40% of the slots. Birgeneau added that Ivy League schools typically understate the number of students whose alumni ties facilitated their admissions. For instance, most Ivies don't count grandchildren as legacies, even though alumni often give the most money — and thus wield the greatest sway over admissions — after becoming grandparents.
Not to mention all of the advantages white kids get growing up ...
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