Admissions Officers at Highly Selective Colleges

Admissions Officers at Highly Selective Colleges August 13, 2013 Were not sure we understand the thesis of an editorial in Real Clear Politics on college admissions officers. Theres an editorial on Real Clear Politics authored by Michael Barone entitled Cheating Is Rife in Colleges by Admissions Officers. Mr. Barone believes that the most intellectually dishonest profession around is being an admissions officer at a highly selective college or university. We dont agree with Mr. Barone but we thought wed share with our readers his opinion nonetheless. Mr. Barone asserts that college admissions officers at highly selective colleges are dishonest because they discriminate against minorities such as Asians and Asian American applicants. We at Ivy Coach have indeed been saying for years that Asians and Asian Americans face discrimination in the highly selective college admissions process. But what makes admissions officers dishonest, according to Mr. Barone, is not so much the discrimination but how they go about admitting students in general. As he writes, But then admissions officers started to cheat. They declared that they were using holistic criteria, trying to gauge from students applications the bigger picture of their life.  In practice, this meant racial discrimination in favor of blacks and Hispanics, and against Asians and whites. Are there ways in which admissions officers at highly selective colleges can be dishonest? Yes. Weve seen deans of admissions submit erroneous data to US News World Report to boost their universitys standing in the all-important college rankings. Weve seen college admissions officers say that their universities are need-blind when in fact this is not actually the case. But Mr. Barones argument while true that Asians and Asian Americans face discrimination in the highly selective college admissions process fails to support his thesis that college admissions officers at top schools are dishonest. How exactly does this relate to his point?