I agree that someone from a bad background will have to work a lot harder than someone from a good one, but in the end, it's the results that matter.
Just to give a stupid example, when you call a painter to paint your house, you don't really care that the painter is in a wheelchair and cannot reach the ceilings, or if the painter is blind and cannot see the walls... you want a good result, ie. a nicely painted house.
Same with colleges... (usually, atleast in "the rest of the world") they want the best students available to enroll. In my country, a formula taking grades and standardized tests results is used, students are sorted by their score, and if there are 60 spots and 100 aplicants, top 60 by score are accepted. The colleges don't know anything about the students except the scores, and the only valid measure is the score. (...there are some exceptions, eg. acting/art schools, with entrance exams)
Just to give a stupid example, when you call a painter to paint your house, you don't really care that the painter is in a wheelchair and cannot reach the ceilings, or if the painter is blind and cannot see the walls... you want a good result, ie. a nicely painted house.
Same with colleges... (usually, atleast in "the rest of the world") they want the best students available to enroll. In my country, a formula taking grades and standardized tests results is used, students are sorted by their score, and if there are 60 spots and 100 aplicants, top 60 by score are accepted. The colleges don't know anything about the students except the scores, and the only valid measure is the score. (...there are some exceptions, eg. acting/art schools, with entrance exams)