You're assuming that someone who grew up in a rural area is destined to be a farmer no matter what and just gave an example of the bias those kids face. The same logic would suggest that a kid who won a music competition in high school shouldn't apply to Berkeley because the other Berklee would be a better fit for them.

> You're assuming that someone who grew up in a rural area is destined to be a farmer no matter what

Not at all.

I live in an area where 4H is big. Many of those people go to Davis and seem to be very happy with their choice, and it seems to be a good fit. Some go to Stanford or Berkeley, and the differences in interests are pretty obvious, even though they are all 4H participants.

If someone is in a club called Future Farmers of America, and they are knocking it out of the ballpark in FFA, then I would expect that there is a high probability that they will have a lot of future prospects in ag. Harvard and Stanford are (usually) pretty bad fits if you want a career in ag, although I can imagine cases when they are actually a good fit. That said, I think the onus is on the applicant (any applicant actually) to show why they are a good fit.

> The same logic would suggest that a kid who won a music competition in high school shouldn't apply to Berkeley because the other Berklee would be a better fit for them

Similarly, if someone has a lot of music accolades but thinks that Berkeley or Stanford or Harvard is a better fit than Berklee, then I think that the onus is on the applicant to explain why. I am definitely not saying it’s impossible or even difficult, rather just that it needs to be done to show that the school is a good fit.

If you spend much time at these elite schools, you see a few people (more than I would prefer) who are completely fish out of water. They are miserable. Sometimes it is because they are not academically prepared (hard to believe, but true), sometimes they have culture shock due to being not from the NE corridor (for Ivies), sometimes they have geographic shock (winters can really suck if you are from SoCal or Hawaii), sometimes they don’t have many peers who share similar interests (e.g., hardcore FFA folks might fall into this category), etc. Many of these students transfer out or drop out. Those are basically failures in fit that admissions officers try to avoid while also maintaining a diverse class (“diverse” here including geographic and SES diversity).

Obviously, a student must sell themselves to the school, but the admissions department should not be assuming what an applicant wants to do beyond what they say in their application. Every college application I've seen has a question asking "Why us over other schools?" and that is the appropriate place to explain why the school would be a good fit. It is not okay to assume that because of someone's extracurricular activities or background that they are not a good fit for your school. It is unlikely that a musician or an athlete would be assumed not to be a good fit despite many of these schools having mediocre music departments and sports programs. The original article shared in this thread cited a study showing that membership in ROTC, 4H, or FFA was negatively correlated with admission. It could be that those types of students are just bad at marketing themselves, or it could be (more likely, in my opinion) that the admissions reviewers have a bias against those activities and the people they imagine do them.

> the admissions department should not be assuming what an applicant wants to do beyond what they say in their application

It almost seems like you may have created a straw man here.

1. I’m not an admissions officer.

2. Of course admissions officers look at what the applicant stated and don’t assume.

3. My question “why would a high performing 4h person want to go to an elite school” is a reasonable one. There are good answers to this question. Sometimes the answer is “I have perfect grades and a high sat score.” That’s not a good answer. As a simple example, I have a friend whose daughter has a lot of potential for an elite school, but she wants to be an animator. Her mom wanted her to apply to Harvard, but after they did some research, they realized that Harvard was not a good fit.

4. The issue with most “research” that claims bias in elite school admissions is that they normalize the data based on grades and scores. The scores and grades at elite schools are heavily condensed at the high end, so they aren’t really the main differentiators (unless you are a recruited athlete). The stuff that the researchers can’t easily quantify often swings the decision between reject and admit.

5. So many people seem to be convinced that elite school admissions officers are actively hostile towards highly qualified applicants. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The admissions decisions may look confusing when folks with similar grades and scores have different admissions results, but that’s probably because a key part of their application is unknown to most people, and/or they were marginal candidates and something seemingly small and not easily quantifiable swayed the decision.

6. The biggest source of discrimination I have seen in elite school admissions is at the local school level. Specifically, I have seen school counselors and some teachers subtly sabotage compelling applicants for reasons that had nothing to do with the quality of the applicant (e.g., counselor preferred someone else, counselor/teacher didn’t like something about the student, etc.). But that’s unfortunately on the student to work around — that is out of the sphere if influence of elite school admissions offices (other than to note potential bias).

7. Lastly, I would love to see the data on the folks who were were active in ROTC, 4H, etc. being negatively correlated. There may be a correlation, but I doubt it’s the cause. I would guess that something that is not easily quantifiable is missing in the application. I will also add that some elite schools have ROTC, so that is especially surprising to me.

> 4. The issue with most “research” that claims bias in elite school admissions is that they normalize the data based on grades and scores. The scores and grades at elite schools are heavily condensed at the high end, so they aren’t really the main differentiators (unless you are a recruited athlete). The stuff that the researchers can’t easily quantify often swings the decision between reject and admit.

How do we square scores being heavily condensed at the high end with still seeing large between-group score differences? We'd expect, surely, to see smaller between-group score differences if one end is cut off.

This part of the thread is about alleged discrimination in elite school admissions against folks in 4H, FFA, and ROTC. These researchers say that they normalize for all other variables other than participation in these activities, and I suggest that their normalization methods are inadequate.

You are asking about a completely different issue.

That said, I think my last sentence still answers your question:

"The stuff that the researchers can’t easily quantify often swings the decision between reject and admit."

Just because you do something well and are outstanding in it doesn't mean it's what you want to do for a career. People fill time with all kinds of things or to pad out a resume. I've been really good at a lot of stuff. I had no intention of making a career out of any of it.