Don't admission officers actually come from worse educational backgrounds than alumni? I think many AO never reach educational or career heights that would help them appreciate the accomplishments of applicants while alumni do.

Those admissions processes are actually seen as very fair processes in those countries. IIRC, there is very high economic diversity in the top colleges in China and India which can't be said about the Ivy League schools.

Those admissions processes are actually well-known for producing excellent students of rote memorization and standardized tests. They are not well-known for producing well-rounded students that are capable of thinking outside of the box.

Uniqueness and well-roundedness are traits of privilege. The activities typically used to signal "uniqueness" for college admissions like philanthropy and political activism have roots in privilege. If you're not from a rich, well-connected white family, the best chance for success is through the typical tryhard, academic STEM path. You can't afford to be unique. You don't have cronyism or money to fall back on.

This does not hold up at all to scrutiny, because Harvard accepts many students that do not come from privileged backgrounds. In fact, their lack of privilege and the challenges they overcame are seen as very "unique" and favorable by the admissions committees.

Look up the income statistics. There are very few low income students at Harvard and similar "holistic" universities. It's a school for rich people.

MIT cares more about scores and STEM and MIT actually has around the lowest family income and lowest percent of rich people in the Ivy League tier.

That part sounds like a literal race quota.

I guess Harvard's defense is that they do most of the "work" at the subjective personality score stage where races are conveniently ranked in the same order as their desirability for "diversity".

It seems unlikely to be unintentional. Since Harvard is grading personality on a USA-centric scale, it would most likely accentuate the traits of the current USA leaders and executives who are overwhelmingly white. We would expect the white children to inherit, genetically and environmentally, these traits from their leader and executive parents and score the highest by a good margin and all other minorities to score low.

The results contradict the expectations. Conveniently, it is black > Hispanic > white > Asian which is exactly the diversity hierarchy

If their only aim was to favor "the traits of the current USA leaders and executives", then that would indeed to a preference of white males, but they have other goals as well, and when taken together, do fall in line with expectations.

What "other goals" and "expectations"?

It conveniently falls in line with racial diversity goals but it is unclear what other goals it accomplishes. The reasonable assumption is that any soft skill goals or measures will have a high preference for white males. It is very suspect that this isn't true.

> Clark had just turned 27 and left behind an estate valued at more than $4 million.

He got to keep the money even though he got convicted for wire fraud?

I think the wire fraud was probably something aside from their main activities -- like how Al Capone got put away for tax evasion.

Also the estate is presumably still open to civil suits.

How do you think most estates started? Profiting off crime and leaving it to their family. The fundamental problems of capitalism include exactly this scenario.

> Spacex: we can go to Mars, but haven't even launched a Mars rocket. Google: AI is here, and the product? Waymo, logs millions of miles, is just sunny conditions?

I don't think that is their literal message and goal. SpaceX's real mission is to innovate space travel which they've been capable of doing and have demonstrated with clear achievements.

SpaceX's revenue is in the billions and is very close to profitable. It most likely would be profitable if it wasn't constantly spending money to expand like Amazon in its early years.

Both can use birth control.

Have you guys applied these more technical/scientific details of the brain to your life?

> A great school and teacher obviously can change the lives of children in poverty but it's astonishingly difficult and requires immense talent to achieve.

Teaching children in poverty is a specialization. Teachers can excel at teaching children at upper middle class schools but fail miserably at an inner city school. People complain about privilege on teacher quality difference between inner city and good schools. The truth is that the "good" teachers at an upper middle class school wouldn't be much of an improvement over the "bad" teachers at inner city schools. The "good" teachers only know how to teach well-behaved, studious students!

That is why integration failed. The environment at good schools are good for children with familial support and low behavioral issues. It is not good for children with behavioral issues without familial support.