[cameldrv]

The numbers wind up pretty grim. 43% of white students are legacy or athletic, 3/4 of those are otherwise inadmissible, so that's 32% of white students ALDC and inadmissible otherwise. Harvard is 44% white, so it's 30% (academically) competitively chosen white. That compares to 58% of the overall college population in the U.S.

[mennis16]

But at whose expense are ALDCs chosen? I suppose we cannot know, but are there rejected non-ALDC white students that could fill those spots who the model would consider deserving to be there? FWIW MIT is ~40% white without AL(DC?) [0], so that is closer to H's current distribution.

The whole admissions situation is of course an opaque, handwavy, crapshoot. But I am just curious in practice what would happen to the distribution if Harvard decided to drop say legacy status.

[0] https://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/profile/

[cameldrv]

I can't really say except that obviously non-ALDC white students are a much smaller proportion of Harvard's class than undergraduate students overall. My guess is that they have target numbers for diversity. Since the overwhelming majority the ALDCs are, due to economic and historical factors, white, it is quite difficult to get into Harvard if you're white and your parents didn't go to Harvard, dont' work at Harvard, aren't rich enough to make a big donation, or aren't moderately wealthy and savvy enough to get you into some obscure Harvardy sport like rowing.