http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/sunda ... ction.htmlIn fact, race plays a role unlike almost any other factor. An African-American student with a similar application to a white student received the equivalent of a 310-point lift in SAT scores, on a 1,600-point scale, according to a study of elite colleges by Thomas J. Espenshade, a Princeton sociologist. For Latino students, the margin was 130 points.
Recruited athletes and so-called legacy applicants also receive huge bonuses. But students who bring the other diversity that colleges claim to value — socioeconomic status, geography and perspective, to name three cited in the brief — receive no such advantage.
One study of 1990s data found that, all else equal, poorer students received no lift relative to affluent ones. Mr. Espenshade found that low-income minorities were somewhat more likely to gain admission than similar higher-income minorities but that lower-income whites received no advantage. In effect, poor and middle-income students are rejected, while others with the same scores and grades — legacies, athletes and minorities, often from privileged backgrounds — are admitted.
As a result, elite public and private colleges remain dominated by affluent students. Some colleges probably have more students from the top 2 percent of the income distribution than the bottom 50 percent.
