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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It’s not fair that schools recruit club swim athletes when club swim costs thousands of dollars a year, either.[/quote]
The more you insert human decision-making into the process, the less fair it gets, in many ways. Race-based preferences, lower academic requirements for athletes, legacy admissions, admissions for the children of big financial donors etc. Some of these preferences are legal, others not. But, they all make the process more subjective and less objective.

Determining admission purely on GPA and test scores would be, objectively, the most fair process, because it would eliminate human bias.[/quote]

Last I checked, the high school teachers who give the grades were human beings. [/quote]
Fine, then go to pure test scores, if you want. Wouldn't bother me.

Or, if we're talking about a state college system, handle admission like the U of Texas system. The top x% based on GPA in each high school in the state gets into the flagship, the next x% gets into the next tier, and so on.

There are ways to eliminate, or at least lessen, subjective admission criteria. But, there are too many vested interests to allow that.

It's odd, because the SAT/ACT were considered a progressive approach when they came about, versus the old system where admission to a lot of elite schools was very much tied to social class, religion and race. It's darkly funny that a few generations ago, elite schools didn't want too many Asians (unless you were a prominent foreigner like Isoroku Yamamoto), and they continue to want to keep them out.

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