If you taught at U of M, I'd imagine you're at least passingly familiar with Gratz v. Bollinger, in which the Supreme Court explicitly made what you're talking about illegal.
So yes, it's a strawman ... no schools do that anymore. Lots of schools never did it. And the schools that were doing so, were doing so with a fundamental misunderstanding of and in non-compliance with both the spirit and letter of the law.
The methodology has changed. Now they use humans instead of a point system. The result is identical. Entering "minorities" and athletes enter with lower GPAs and SATs. It's a fact, not a strawman.
Well at the very least maybe you can finally admit that you're expressing a view about minority students. Quitting your denial of that would be a great first step.
Entering "minorities" and athletes enter with lower GPAs and SATs.
So? Surprise, surprise: when you start adding factors besides pre-college test scores to your admissions criteria you see ... variation in pre-college scores.
The methodology has changed. Now they use humans instead of a point system.
So you're unhappy that non SAT/GPA factors are taken into account. I'm curious if you've got the intellectual consistency to be in favor of simply ranking all students by their high school GPAs and SAT scores in descending order and taking the first N students. Maybe we don't actually need admissions committees or essays at all ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratz_v._Bollinger
So yes, it's a strawman ... no schools do that anymore. Lots of schools never did it. And the schools that were doing so, were doing so with a fundamental misunderstanding of and in non-compliance with both the spirit and letter of the law.