[olladecarne]

I still think the "holistic" approach is flawed. The "holistic" criteria benefits upper-class students because lower and middle class kids are rarely trained from a young age to be involved in extra-curricular activities the way upper-class kids are. I experienced this first hand growing up, many future Ivy league students almost seemed to have been trained for it from the moment they were born. The parents had connections all over the place and their kids could study/work on all sorts of interesting hobbies. On the other hand the lower class people had no idea that this world existed and at best spent some time studying for the standardized exams if their parents were really invested in their future.

Basically, whatever thing you choose as the metric, people with more resources and information will be able to optimize for it better. However, the more difficult the metric becomes to achieve, the more it benefits those who already benefit from the resource and information asymmetry.

[chrisseaton]

> middle class kids are rarely trained from a young age to be involved in extra-curricular activities

I almost can't think of something more middle-class than an aggressive dedication to as many extra-curricular activities as possible. SUVs full of children being driven from baseball to ballet to swimming? Seems a common part of culture for the middle-class?

[MandieD]

More like upper-middle, because those activities aren’t cheap. Ballet: lessons, costumes and shoes (make it onto pointe? New shoes every few weeks) Swimming: new suits every few weeks when the chlorine starts eating through and travel to swim meets. Baseball: if you want to really compete, you’re going to be on a travel team.

And those SUVs require parents (usually moms) with the free time to do all that driving and managing.

[908B64B197]

Whatever you build, it will inevitably get min/maxed.

Every admission system prides itself in being the best but they all ultimately end up getting gamified. Because there is too much at stake.