What these schools should do imo is set an admissions floor they are comfortable with and then admit students randomly. https://twitter.com/charlesflehman/status/1314675563353837571

It’s obviously a bigger conversation.

But the basic idea that it’s both very important for Yale to be populated by kids with very high SAT scores but also there should be a dozen exceptions to this rule (for URM, legacies, rural states, fencing stars) doesn’t make sense.

This is better-studied at the high school level, but in general the proposition that there are benefits to concentrating all the kids with the highest test scores together in a special school does not have a strong evidentiary basis.

https://economics.mit.edu/files/9518 

My son when he found out that kids go to different colleges not just the one closest to their house naively said that made sense, because probably the best teachers should work with the kids who need the most help.

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯