Meritocracy is generally not about "natural talent", it is about accomplishment. It may be the case that $REFERENCE_CLASS_1 performs poorly because they parent their children badly.This doesn't mean that the final process doesn't measure merit, it just means that because of bad parenting or whatever, $REFERENCE_CLASS_1 has less merit than $REFERENCE_CLASS_2.
To take two extreme reference classes, children deprived of oxygen at birth have less merit than children given sufficient oxygen. The result of oxygen deprivation is unfair and sad, but that doesn't mean the brain-damaged child strangled by his umbilical cord is more meritorious than the normal child.
Let me be clear about "holistic" admissions. This is usually just a code word that means "we'd love to just use quotas to let in enough non-asian minorities and keep out those jerky asians, but we can't, so we'll do holistic admissions instead." This is what I'm referring to when I use the term.
freedom and equality are not opposed. Meritocracy can accomodate both.
To follow your example, if the brain-damaged child strangled by his umbilical cord achieve just as much as the normal child, he has more merit.
That's the 2nd principle of political liberalism: "Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: first, they are to be attached to positions and offices open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and second, they are to be to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society."
In that case, let both brain damaged and normal children compete.
But I agree with your case, most admissions system are poorly disguised racism. Life sucks sometimes.
> if the brain-damaged child strangled by his umbilical cord achieve just as much as the normal child, he has more merit.
I think you need to start defining what you mean by "achievement" and "merit," because "equal achievement" and "greater merit" are not the same things from my perspective. If a brain-damaged child achieves just as much a normal child, they have equal merit, from my perspective.
Again, I think a lot of people are conflating meritocracy with social justice. I think this attitude stems from the fact that people think meritocracy is "good," and that social justice is also "good," so meritocracy must necessarily be socially just, when that is not the case. Meritocracy alone is neither inherently socially unjust or inherently socially just.
It's worth noting that 'merit' in the 'test scores' approach just means scored X on test Y and/or Z on test W. So if (for example) someone gets low SAT scores, but cures cancer, they don't get admitted, because 'cures cancer' isn't part of the admissions criteria.
Setting aside the fact that in reality the person who cures cancer will get admitted because colleges take into account academic honors and achievements, and setting aside the fact that there is a high correlation between test score and likelihood of discovering a cure for cancer, the point you are making is one of "what constitutes merit," which is entirely tangential to my original point (which in no way equated merit to solely test scores).
Actually "holistic" admissions means "we're not going to be irrationally obsessed with SAT scores".
Basically if SAT is your sole criterion then you become Caltech. Caltech is a great school but there are other human phenotypes that would like to go to college and other universities to accommodate them.
Actually "holistic" admissions means "we're not going to be irrationally obsessed with SAT scores".
What a coincidence - when the supreme court said point-based race discrimination was illegal but discrimination in holistic systems was legal, colleges immediately switched to holistic admissions.
Yeah dude all schools across the board immediately switched to continue to keep down the asian man. The court decision you are alluding to simply outlawed giving points to applicants for being of a certain race. The FEW schools using these systems did so as a way of countering latent effects of slavery. After the ruling they stopped doing so. What's your point?
To take two extreme reference classes, children deprived of oxygen at birth have less merit than children given sufficient oxygen. The result of oxygen deprivation is unfair and sad, but that doesn't mean the brain-damaged child strangled by his umbilical cord is more meritorious than the normal child.
Let me be clear about "holistic" admissions. This is usually just a code word that means "we'd love to just use quotas to let in enough non-asian minorities and keep out those jerky asians, but we can't, so we'll do holistic admissions instead." This is what I'm referring to when I use the term.