> Asian and Jewish kids today can game the system.

This is just a cope. Poor Asians outperform in standardized metrics as well. New York’s selective admissions high schools, for example, are dominated by asians but have almost half of students qualifying for free or reduced price lunch.

To another example, comparing Asian kids and Hispanic kids raised in the bottom quantile of the income distribution, the Asian kids are over three times more likely to end up in the top income quantile as adults: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/27/upshot/make-y...

This is not the perception I heard. People from SE Asia are welcome to comment on this (and they would provide a better perspective than I can) but I know several Cali people of Flipino or Vietnamese descent whose parents are not wealthy surgeons, and they also favor the holistic approach. It also becomes a problem of numbers. Hispanic and Asian kids are the fastest growing denominations in the US. It is very likely that many of them are recent immigrants and are not wealthy. Of course, I am not saying that having a sad story in and of itself is a hall pass. All I am saying is many comments here state that focusing SOLELY on grades and tests is fair, despite the fact that is not true. I went to a Top 5 college. I was not rich. I grew up with a mom that saved ice cream buckets to reuse them. I saw many rich kids' siblings take entire summers off to study and plan their applications. Whereas kids where I grew up in Detroit held summer jobs at country clubs, ice cream shops, and mall stores to help with bills. How are standardized tests fair with this context in mind? I am getting heavily down voted. I will say this. I was a white kid, whose parents were not wealthy. I was a refugee. And I am in favor of the holistic approach. I think it speaks volumes on here when rich white guys who are typically progressives line up with Trump policies on this matter (the other big one being Israel). I think this is where you take a hard look in the mirror, and question whether what you believe is right. I am not arguing further on this topic. I am a living experience of it. Reducing entire applicants to those metrics that are believed on here to be objective is reductionist, and I promise you, the most accomplished engineers and founders will not come from that pool of applicants you worship.