[rychco]

Most people have already mentioned that this change could result in discrimination, but I think it's also extremely important to note that these high school students are extremely overworked.

If a student is a top-tier applicant that has good grades, plays a sport, participates in a club or two, volunteers, & has a part-time job, they are easily working a minimum of 60+ hours per week. There is absolutely no way this can continue. I was pissed about this when I was in high school ~8 years ago, and it's only gotten worse since.

EDIT: Downvoted because I'm advocating for teens to not have to spend all of their waking hours preparing for college & instead get enough sleep or do something enjoyable?

[souprock]

For schools and scholarships, I often see the requirement for volunteer hours. (not really "volunteer" if required though)

This is discrimination against people who need employment. It's a luxury to get transportation to a volunteer location, and then spend hours there, without any income earned.

[sokoloff]

Selecting for students who have a track record of success in spite of 60-hours of time being "spoken for" is a not unreasonable selection process for students who will succeed at MIT.

[rychco]

The 60h/week figure is what I observed ~8 years ago for my peers to be competitive for our state university that was not MIT or an Ivy. My point is that I think students are being overworked because the requirements are too subjective. A student has to be involved in everything on top of having great grades and scores because the SAT/ACT was the only thing that was even close to being an objective requirement.