[dahfizz]

And as a result, the person who took more Honors classes will be "more educated" (assuming the Honors / AP classes succeed in their stated goal). Therefore, the student that took the Honors classes is more competitive.

It comes back to the question of what universities should prioritize. Should they be optimizing for the fairest / most equal student body, or the most gifted / competitive student body?

[jfengel]

More educated and more competitive are not the same thing.

What you want is the most talented, hardest working, brightest students. That's difficult to discern given the differences in the availability of opportunity. Scaling for availability is hard.

But it is clear that just selecting for the students who succeeded in the best environment will leave you missing out on potential. And worse, that rapidly becomes self-reinforcing, since the next generation of students will be influenced by your choices on this one.

[visarga]

Even when parents are paying for the lesson, it's still the student that has to do the hard work. But a student with less help deserves more merit for achieving the same.