[yummyfajitas]

You seem to be suggesting that we should actively use racial and other demographic characteristics as part of a predictor.

Suppose we run our linear regression or random forest, and it turns out holding all else equal, black people underperform others. I.e., same SAT, same GPA, the black guy is likely to perform worse. (Please read your source and note the sign on the black/hispanic coefficients.)

You seem to be advocating that we should then penalize the black guy even though his grades are identical. Is that a fair statement of your post?

I don't have a strong opinion on this, though I definitely have a negative emotional reaction to it.

[dragonwriter]

I'm saying that to be actually meritocratic, where the merit to be assessed is expected college performance, using such factors (or, better, identifying the underlying reasons that existing measures do not work consistently across race, etc., and correctly using the underlying factors that research identifies) may be necessary. But I'm not arguing that admissions should be meritocratic, so by suggesting that something would be necessary for meritocracy, I'm not suggesting that it should be done. What I am arguing is that the claim that, but for AA, the admissions processes in use actually are meritocratic was, and remains, unsupported.

[yummyfajitas]

According to your source, SAT, GPA and AP/IB courses are all positive and statistically significant predictors of performance.

Am I correct that according to you, the main gap between an SAT/GPA based metric and meritocracy is applying the appropriate penalty to blacks/hispanics and the appropriate bonus to females, as per the regression table in your source?