The US is still known as the land of opportunity. Before the pandemic, around 2.5 million immigrants flowed into the country every year from nations around the world. For young international students, US college admission is the first gateway towards entering society in a fairly legitimate and secure way. Therefore, the fairness of college admissions has often been the topic of social controversy. Many parents from within and outside the country seek to have their child placed at a US university, and with all but impressive pool of applicants, these decisions might as well be a “coin flip”. Given a number of equally impressive students, what gives one an edge over the others is based on 1) the applicant’s legacy status, 2) athletic admission, 3) whether the applicant needs financial aid, and 4) their ethnicity. The magnitude of influence the aforementioned preferential measures have approximately follows that of the above listed order. The last element on the list is the one causing a nation-wide backlash.
  The recent Supreme Court decision that rejects the use of race as one of the deciding factors of college admission is flaring up discussions on racial equality. This radical decision revokes more than 40 years of precedence while leaving other preferences in place – ones that mostly benefit white students. The rationale behind using racial preference in the admission process is rooted in affirmative action. It aims to alleviate social inequalities by promoting opportunities to historically under-represented groups of people. So to disregard race in the admission’s process is to overlook the historical injustices that led certain groups of people to be under-represented. 
  Meanwhile, other preferential measures such as legacy status and athletic admissions are left in place. These admissions processes reflect the idea that wealth and social status are inherited. A student whose parents or grandparents are from an Ivy League school is way more likely to be accepted to those schools than those coming from families without legacy status. Similarly, a student who had access to recreational facilities in their town is way more likely to be a student-athlete than those from poor neighborhoods. The issue, of course, with student-athletes and legacy students is that they are “disproportionately white, wealthy, and suburban.” Out of nine Supreme Court judges, six of them are conservative and white.