July 13, 2026
Accepted? Rejected? Roasted
What did SFFA vs. Harvard reveal about admissions?
Elite college admissions look less like merit and more like a rigged game, commenters say
TLDR: The article argues elite college admissions are shaped by special advantages, race, and family finances more than people like to admit. Commenters split between calling the system blatantly unfair and accusing the piece of ignoring the surge in applications, while parents especially melted down over the brutal cost.
The big bombshell from the Harvard admissions court fight? A lot of readers came away feeling that elite college entry isn’t a clean contest of grades and effort — it’s a sorting machine with secret fast passes. The article points to wildly different odds depending on your lane: athletes, legacies, donor-connected applicants, and faculty kids appear to get much easier routes than the regular applicant staring at an acceptance rate under 5.5%. Then came the stat that lit the comments on fire: one model claimed the same applicant could swing from 25% to 95% admission odds just by changing the race box. Harvard disputed the exact math, but commenters were already in full "this system is cooked" mode.
And honestly, the real emotional explosion was over money. Readers zeroed in on the idea that two students can sit in the same classroom while one pays almost nothing and the other gets hit with nearly the full bill. That triggered a mini comment-section therapy session from middle- and upper-middle-income parents who say they’re too "rich" for aid and too broke to casually write six-figure checks. One dad practically delivered the thread’s bleak stand-up routine, listing his family’s demographic traits like he was filling out a doomed character sheet. Meanwhile, others pushed back hard, saying the article ignored the huge rise in total applications, calling that omission "borderline malpractice." So yes: one side yelled rigged, the other yelled missing context, and everyone agreed the price tag is a horror show.
Key Points
- •The article uses data from *SFFA v. Harvard* to argue that elite admissions outcomes differ sharply by applicant track before full file review.
- •It cites Harvard-related research showing admit rates of 86% for recruited athletes, 47% for faculty/staff children, 42% for dean's-interest applicants, 34% for legacies, and under 5.5% for non-ALDC applicants.
- •It highlights a plaintiff-side counterfactual model in which one fixed applicant profile had predicted admission probabilities of 25% as Asian American, 36% as white, 77% as Hispanic, and 95% as African American.
- •The article notes that the race figures are modeled probabilities disputed by Harvard's experts, not actual observed admit rates.
- •It explains college pricing as household-specific net pricing based on FAFSA, CSS Profile, and Student Aid Index calculations, illustrated with Princeton's 2023–24 income-based net price data.