This article is hitting the nail on the head. It's not a glut of international students taking up all the spots because they'll pay more. That's not why you didn't get in. It's not legacies taking your spot in the class. There really are not that many unqualified legacies at Yale and Harvard. It's not blacks or latinos taking your spot via affirmative action. The blacks and latinos at Yale, Harvard or MIT likely outclass you along any dimension on which we'd care to take a truly objective comparative measure.

Here's reality, there are just a whole lot more people trying to get into college now. It was easy before, but if you want that spot today, you have to beat out a lot more people to get it. That's why we have all the bribes and whatnot going on. If a thousand people or whatever are all going after the same spot, it's not likely yours will be the winning application. So people try to game the system instead. But even with the increased competition, our schools are relatively easy to get into. In America, you can always get into some school.

My kids can claim hispanic status through their (very very Mexican mother) and conventional wisdom is that they can both breeze into any college they care to by checking the right box on the application. Whether that's true or not, I've always warned them not to rely on it - if they coast in and find themselves surrounded by people who know the material backward and forward while they're still struggling with the basics, they're going to end up coasting right back out.

The blacks and hispanics at MIT or wherever, they are definitely not "coasters". That's an urban myth that will be roundly dispelled about 15 minutes into a working relationship with one of them.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Entrance_Examination_–_A... [2] https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d674e7841444d78457a6333566d54/...