Here in France, elite STEM schools run a series of highly competitive exams that consist of a series of written tests and oral interviews over several weeks. These are brutal, students basically prepare for them for 2 to 3 years and there is no alternate way to trick your way in. Not if you're a billionaire.
The system is far from perfect: only a teeny tiny fraction of students who make it are from poor/underprivileged backgrounds (some do). Yes it is infinitely easier to prepare for these exams in a middle class family than in a ghetto.
Yet it still seems an order of magnitude MORE FAIR then checking whether daddy is a big donor to the school. Or having SATs that are so ridiculously easy that we're gonna have to fallback on whether you were a member of the theater club.
The system is far from perfect: only a teeny tiny fraction of students who make it are from poor/underprivileged backgrounds (some do). Yes it is infinitely easier to prepare for these exams in a middle class family than in a ghetto.
Yet it still seems an order of magnitude MORE FAIR then checking whether daddy is a big donor to the school. Or having SATs that are so ridiculously easy that we're gonna have to fallback on whether you were a member of the theater club.