[icelancer]

>A better way to do it is to maintain the same admission standards for everybody, but actively seek out more applications from women. It'll indirectly raise the number of women who get admitted, without distorting things in the way that you describe.

Not necessarily and it could certainly lead to distortion due to simple error in evaluation.

If you encourage applicants from an underserved pool, do you believe the average quality of these new applicants from the pool will be equivalent to the average quality prior to the new programs?