Downside to merit-based college admission

Many people cheered the news recently that the Trump White House reversed Obama-era policies designed to foster greater racial diversity on America’s college campuses, contending students should only be admitted on academic merit.

They wouldn’t necessarily applaud the outcome if academics became the sole criteria: overwhelmingly female campuses.

Girls outperform boys across the country, which is why more than 56 percent of college students today are women. Admissions directors have acknowledged bypassing more qualified females to admit enough males for gender balance; neither young women nor young men want to attend a school that’s nearly all female.

Colleges want a mix of students and make allowances to achieve that goal. Colleges seek running backs, math scholars, tuba players, ballet dancers and yodeling champions. The admissions process aims to generate a wellrounded and diverse class of students with varied interests and backgrounds.

As recently as 2016, the Supreme Court affirmed that colleges can use affirmative action “to promote diversity, but they need to be very care- ful about it and revisit it,” said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond. “That is the law of the land right now, but there is a fair amount of pressure to change that.”

While people want the admission process to oper- ate as a meritocracy, Tobias pointed out in an interview it is not, noting the extra weights given for athletics, geography, legacy and a host of other factors.