“The blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it.”
Marcus Aurelius

By now, all of the top universities have released their decisions for first-year undergraduates. We are moving further and further away from the classes directly affected by the pandemic, but moving into a new political environment. The right, heralded by Elon, who is starting to lose power (as much as an unelected centibillionaire oligarch can anyways), have put on a display of what they believe to be aggressive meritocracy. I say “what they believe to be” because they already have a track record filled with blemishes in this regard.[1][2] SCOTUS decisions and federal orders are in the process of changing the systems and drastically cutting funding for some of the best universities in the world.[3] Instead of solely addressing this new reality, I want to mainly try to orchestrate how the graduating class of 2025 should feel. Focusing more on vibes instead of statistics, here’s my breakdown. An abundant number of references to data are still linked if you are interested. Remember to interpret things in context and proportionally. And keep in mind that more successful people are generally more likely to post about themselves online. I have no numbers for that one, but it makes sense, right?

As per usual, I’ve seen the traditional posts of students posting their stats on Reddit, Twitter, and unfortunately Facebook noting how they had good stats yet were not accepted to top public universities—let alone the prestigious institutions lining the coasts. It is obviously frustrating for 4.3 GPA students with mid 1500s or higher on the SAT to be rejected from anywhere. You’ve likely succeeded at least within the top 5% of your high school and perhaps your entire state. And for the first time in your life, you’re being told that you aren’t good enough to end up at a place you spent your whole life trying to get into. Indeed, that is exactly what a rejection from an elite college means. If it’s not, then that means that admissions are deciding things randomly. And that hopefully is not the case. If applicants are tiered, with higher tier ones being looked over more carefully, it is likely that two students who are very close in terms of prospects have to be decided between. At the end, an admissions officer has to choose between those two, or potentially more. If this decision were not personal, then the only other option is that it would be random. And once again, I would like to assume that they are not doing the latter. It’s a selective process, after all. Rejection is the judgement that someone else was better than you, or dozens.[4][5]

Before I continue, I want to note that I do not feel any animosity towards admissions officers at elite colleges. This isn’t because I’ll be applying to graduate programs in a few years. I recognize that you may be a genuine and hard-working person. My frustration here is directed at the system.

And you are right to be mad. Elite colleges correlate to higher income, which is one of the largest indicators of happiness. Students have access to world class alumni networks, internships, and research opportunities. We live in a society that revolves around money and status. To ignore the inherent advantages of a prestigious university is to be delusional.[6][7][8][9][10][11][12]

So, you’re sitting here praying to get accepted from a waitlist. Or maybe you got accepted to your top picks: congratulations! You’re brilliant! I’m happy for you and hope that your new opportunities help you achieve your dreams. And I also hope that you don’t contribute any more to the negative aspects of the American education system, or society, which is of course largely run by those from elite universities. But, back to those rejected.

First: please don’t wait until June or whatever. Your chance of getting off a waitlist is very low. For top schools, it can be anywhere from 25% to 0, depending on their yield and the circumstances at hand. If you didn’t get into a top 20 (a term heavily influenced by publications like US News, Niche, QS World University Rankings that universities really try to get onto!), commit to a well-known flagship state school. If you’re in California, consider community college and then transferring, especially if money is a barrier. There are a ton of fantastic schools out there that you may have not known about. The amount of students I’ve seen that brush aside schools like UIUC, University of Wisconsin–Madison, and Purdue is pretty shocking. These schools, in some areas, are quite competitive and also industry leaders. The general ranking of a school is important, but the specific rank for your major is arguably more important.Brilliant people with the right mindset can attack any project or idea and generally do pretty well.

You’ve probably heard all of this before. “These stats alone aren’t enough to get in. You need gold in that olympiad. You need to do an internship here. You need to win an award at this national competition. Your essays didn’t paint a picture of yourself well enough.” Yeah. Most top achievers in high school have already heard all of this before. The people online aren’t much help. And neither are most college counselors, for what it’s worth.

Are you mad because you didn’t know about one of these things? Well, it’s your fault that your parents didn’t go through elite academia. It’s your fault that as a freshman, you picked the wrong friends. It’s your fault that you aren’t a phenomenal writer in a society that has moved away from exploring the humanities? It’s your fault that your parents aren’t working at a national lab, and didn’t recite the functional groups at the dinner table. Go blame your teachers for not promoting it! How come your uncle didn’t teach you about null pointers? Why didn’t you teach yourself how to study in an education system that doesn’t teach you how to succeed and that doesn’t promote mastery?

And by the way, no shade on students at fantastic universities who participated in AIME or ISEF or USAPhO or were president of a STEM club at your school or whatever. You’re brilliant! You found opportunities, chances to succeed, and attacked them. And no shade on kids with brilliant parents either. I’ve known many students who belong to both of the above categories. I do, however, direct shade at college counselors across the country, who are prescribing misinformation, lies, and helping to uphold a corrupt system (if this isn’t you, don’t worry! And if you think it’s not, but you’re feeling offended, then maybe it really is you).

And some arrogant pricks at private schools may not like the truth, but the largest indicator of being admitted to top colleges is money. There is no better way to guarantee admission to one of these schools than money. Is that really fair? After all, none of us get to pick our parents. And what a surprise it is that the only viewpoint I’ve seen defending legacy admissions comes from a conservative newspaper at Stanford!13

I’m not sure I feel the need to reply in full to an argument that

  • insinuates wealth is merit
  • uses a decreasing number of legacy students after JHU “banned” legacy admissions to advocate for bringing legacy admissions back
  • uses the idea of some kid’s parents writing checks for all the programs while he’s there as rationale for them being accepted.

Okay, back to the laundry list of things you should have done. It’s kind of stupid, isn’t it? And it’s not even a guarantee. Let’s say you did everything you could have: then you’re mad because you feel like you were treated unfairly (which would include an arbitrary decision)? And chances are, you were. Colleges, including the best in the world, frequently say that they could fill their incoming classes with several more classes than they are able to accept. Some even brag about this, as if it’s a good thing.[14] And sure, hosting a course and providing space costs money. There are budget constraints. But the real truth is that schools are really businesses, which are mostly there to make money and keep you as a rat of the system. And there’s no better way to do this than keeping admit rates artificially low. It concentrates power in a smaller group and keeps the prestige up.

Some of you may try to reach for minor differences. Some try to scream DEI.

Let’s address that elephant in the room. First, can we at least agree that it’s a good idea on paper? Some demographics are inherently underrepresented in certain fields. These fields—mathematics, engineering, law, etc.—are what grow, rule, and shape the world we live in. It’s a problem if certain people aren’t having significant say in them. This is reasonable. Perhaps the most important aspect of this, that was getting far less attention, was getting low income students adjusted as candidates in a way that lets admissions fairly compare them to a high income one. If you disagree with the first half, can you at least understand why

  • an underprivileged and passionate high schooler who works at his family’s restaurant with stats akin to the majority of accepted students with a fair but not exceptional number of meaningful extracurriculars
  • could potentially be a better fit than a rich kid with the same stats but got to go with daddy to Kenya on a company trip to work with the youth? Or who got to sit in on a leading lab that mommy runs and input data into a spreadsheet?

In regards to equity, perhaps the biggest shocker was how top colleges decided to drop their requirement of standardized tests, the infamous test-optional era. Now, what are the downsides to the SAT and ACT? They are used in elitist ways. They test students on relatively basic content (sophomore-level English and math up to algebra 2). They cost money to take and can often require students needing to travel. It gives more money to the monopoly the College Board has on education. The system can be gamed. They don’t contribute anything to the betterment of education. All of these are reasonable.

The thing is, the SAT is the closest thing we have to an objective metric in college admissions. Your GPA can be inflated far more. Perhaps a solution to this is to “standardize” GPA among school districts and counties. But as it stands, it definitely can be inflated more. Your college essays can be written by someone else. Your activities can be artificial. It’s a lot more necessary to hire a tutor or advisor for other extracurriculars than the SAT. And it’s because the SAT is easy. I believe that nearly every single student capable of getting through sophomore year with a true 3.5 GPA average, with the right mindset, can score above 1400 on the SAT. It’s less of a test of knowledge and more about how well you know the structure of the questions. It’s entirely possible to know math at a relatively high level for a high schooler and still not score exceptionally on the SAT because you have to really get it down. You have to commit to learning a system. And this commitment is achievable by anyone willing to put the time in.

The gaps in the mean scores between different demographics is almost always less than 250.[15] And this, in the grand scheme of things, is really not a huge difference. For truly committed students, I predict that the difference is even less, maybe around 150. And increasing your score by 100 points is very manageable. It still reflects a disparity on the basis of income. I’d love to see a world where education is advanced enough to the point where standardized tests are unnecessary. Unfortunately, as things stand, there is no fairer way to evaluate a student’s preparedness for succeeding at an elite university than the SAT.[16][17]

Yes, I know that these two references likely use grades as the largest indicator of success, which isn’t proper; what about things like internships and clubs? That being said, someone who can’t succeed in a college level class is probably not getting accepted to many internships. It’s not always their fault, but it’s the truth.

My only reasonable piece of feedback for this system would be to factor in AP test scores alongside SAT scores. It makes no sense for a student with 5s in the likes of AP Calculus BC, AP Physics C, and AP English Literature to not be seen as a very good applicant in that aspect of admissions. And it also adds another level of “depth” to the whole thing. If around 150,000 students score 1400 or higher and around 40,000 score 1500 or higher, there are far too many students to weed through. AP tests can have similarly large numbers, but it has to help the process somewhat.

For instance, in 2024 the number of students who scored a 5 in...[18]

  • AP Chemistry was 26,986
  • AP English Literature was 53,268
  • AP Physics C E&M was 17,464
  • AP Physics 2 was 4,359

These are just some examples. Keep in mind that while many juniors do take these exams, there is a substantial number of freshman, sophomores, and seniors combined that also take them. The numbers above are thus actually much lower (people who don’t take their AP tests by junior year will not get to put them on their college applications). And the numbers are mostly lower than the percentage who score a 1500 on their SAT. Factoring in “meaningful” AP exams would reduce the number of students in the “top tier stack” for admissions officers and give applicants the opportunity to not feel as much anxiety towards one single test. People also learn better and more when they are motivated, and this gives them the opportunity to be motivated about a subject that interests them.

Now, let’s move into discussion about what DEI is mostly about: race. The first issue is that the majority of Americans do not understand the differences between race, ethnicity, and nationality. These definitions inherently cater to our idea of what it means to be “White” which is very westernized and even more Americanized. How can we tell whether an Asian person of say, Malaysian ethnicity, is more oppressed than a White person who identifies as Latino? And how does that compare to a White person who is ethnically Austrian? Do we look at income? Their skin color? What if someone appears different or is mixed? These are questions with answers that aren’t even firmly answerable, yet before the SCOTUS decision, they could determine college admissions.

Chances are, many of the people who are benefitting from DEI aren’t even the people the media scapegoats. A lot of the people benefitting are probably White. Legacy admissions at elite schools also favor White kids. Is that DEI?[19] And that makes sense, given that they are a majority of the population. Per capita, does that hold true? I’m not sure. And is that okay? Is it more about addressing systemic racism or economic disparity?

A lot of elite universities have an infamous lack of transparency when it comes to this stuff. A portion of students withhold information on their applications.[20] The lack of feedback and excellence from the college system is one of the main reasons why we’re in this war. Not everything needs to follow an algorithm, but the manner in which many colleges release and analyze their data is ridiculously unscientific.

I am from and most familiar with Bay Area schools, so I’m using the example of Berkeley and Stanford. Many of the students in the Bay Area are hyper-competitive and the highest succeeding ones tend to be Asian.[21] Generally, before the SCOTUS decision, the percentage of Asian students in race blind Berkeley was higher than the percentage of Asian students at Stanford, which factored in race. The old data for Stanford are not available to me.[22][23] The percentage of White, Latino, and Black students was also higher.

Some, we’ll call them Group A, justify this by trying to say that Asians are boring. Group A says that Asians don’t have personality and don’t give back to their communities. People, Group B, fire back and say that these things don’t determine academic success in fields like computer science or engineering or medicine. And Group B doesn’t only mean Asians. They mean that all that should matter is academic merit for anyone. And all we get here is an unnecessary fight fuelled by obtuseness from everyone involved.

Asians on average do make more money than other groups and are overrepresented in elite STEM colleges. These are irrefutable facts. Asians, still victims of racism, are a diverse group, among the most diverse in the United States.[24] Percentage-wise, there are more Asian immigrants and more Asian kids closer in lineage to immigrants than any other race. The difference in income across Asian ethnicities is substantial, yet they are often grouped into one category instead of seen for their ethnicities, which is the standard in other parts of the world.[25] Many Asians are not even completely at peace with their own identities, so it’s unfair to force them into a box, and to assess them off of it. Asians, unfortunately, are plagued by the “model minority” idea and have kept their voices down on nearly every socio political topic other than this one. This silence is resulting in the weaponization of the Asian race by both sides.

Many of these elite schools have admit rates at sub 8%. Thousands of kids are being rejected because of things out of their control without understanding why. I’m not touching upon potential responsibility that comes with race today (so don’t assume that I agree or disagree with the idea), but this ultimately leaves people really upset. A lot of kids are upset, and if they aren’t, parents want the best for their kids.

To conclude this section, I want to once again restate that DEI as a concept is fine. It is just a problem when it is done using ham-fisted policies like going test optional, viewing identity through an incomprehensive lens, and when the people in-charge on either end use certain groups as tokens. If you get into an accident and break your arm, your first move is to go to the hospital. Many others around you were hurt too. They need to get help as well. Some will get there sooner than others. Some will receive proper care. A significant portion won’t. But at that moment, or for the next few months as people seek treatment, the right move isn’t to burn down the hospital.

So, hopefully that gave you a little bit of clarity on everything. If I read that two (?) years ago, I’d still be upset. If you’re reading this, you’re likely a top student with ambitious, wonderful goals. One of these goals, perhaps the most important, was getting accepted to a prestigious college. You felt it would change your world. And the fact that you are so upset is something to hold onto. Any long term goal is only worth it if the thought of not achieving it makes you frustrated.

From time to time, losers win and winners lose. One thing that helped me come to my senses with this was the idea that the way the events of the universe play out can often be arbitrary. That is, if you were on the way to doing something truly special, this rejection doesn’t mean you have to do something different. It’s not a sign that you weren’t or will never be good enough.

You can cry. You can go for a long hike. You can journal. You can listen to music. You don’t need to come to terms with this just yet. Try to get your mind off it. If you need to dwell in it for a while, that’s fine too. You just need to survive. You’re not a survivor until you face true hardship, and reality is that most of the kids who got accepted to pristine schools that cost $90,000 a year have not faced that. Some may never.

Now that you’ve been hurt, you must not let the college system force your head down. You’re going to have to chart your way to the stars with no one holding your hand. You’re going to have to work harder than those already up there. One day, you’re going to leave them behind. And if you can’t make it? You’ll die trying.

References