Long opinion piece and I don't agree with everything he wrote but do agree with the overarching idea - BLM and everything that seems attributed to BLM protests is going to be more of a negative for Biden than positive through the elections.

Biden should continue to speak out for legit BLM but some of the more questionable protests & actions are muddied with BLM so it's hard to delineate between the 2 sets.

Not sure how he should do it (and he probably won't be 100% successful ala Portland) but he needs to do something to win/not lose the approx 4-10% of undecided & independents.

Trump law-and-order campaign would deflate without BLM street protests

Really good poll for Trump. Marist/NBC (A+ rated by 538) shows the candidates tied in Florida.

That's a tightening over the last few weeks. Shows that Trump is still very much in Electoral College striking distance.

Another strategy is to just get Democrats to vote for him since they far outnumber Republicans in this country. But maybe chasing those non-exisrent people on the fence will work this time.

Could always change more but RCP has Biden +7. His lead hasn't been over +8 in over a month. I read it as a slight tightening in August and no more movement since. That's also five points better than Clinton was at the same point in '16. In early September Clinton's +2 and change exactly mirrored her eventual margin in the popular vote. If Biden can say the same the EC won't be close. Granted that is still an IF and I do wish it were +10 or +12. Trump's approval being at it's highest level since late May is one troubling sign, but about the only one I see.

The 'non-existent' undecideds very much exist; they appear to be about 5% or so right now.

Gotta be honest - I've always assumed Florida will go red. I feel like DeSantis will make sure of it.

SI

On another bright note, I believe that's far less than the undecides in 2016.

The great American experiement:

Basically everyone agrees that Biden is somewhere between 5-8 points ahead at the moment.

Basically everyone agrees that even if the polls don't tighten, a combination of COVID, voter supression, and the electoral college gives Trump a very real chance of victory.

I'd rather get the other people to show up and vote. The group you have a massive advantage with.

There is this mythical group of voters who need Biden to cater to the center we keep hearing about. The guy is as moderate as it gets with practically no progressive credentials at all. He gave more time at his convention to Republicans than progressive Democrats. If some so-called centrist doesn't believe that, there is not much he can do. They were likely voting Trump all the way anyhow.

The response to Trump's law and order play is to point out practically everyone who works close to him gets arrested. His people are constantly breaking laws and under investigation. Shit, the head of the post office just openly admitted to committing felonies like it was no big deal.

And most importantly, he has no control over protests. He holds no position of power. This is Trump's country. A simple "I stand against any criminal actions by people. A President who has shown no regard for the law himself sets an example for others." works.

Except Biden has already done the simple "I stand against any criminal actions" and no one heard it.

I don't disagree, tho. I think he has more to gain from Dem turnout than he does to lose from going "off center".

SI

Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but I just don't buy the pessimism on the electoral college for Biden. Hillary won the popular vote by just over 2% and lost the electoral college due to severely small margins in multiple states. Are people thinking the election will get closer than 2% or thinking Biden will be a worse electoral college candidate than Hillary was? There's zero evidence of the latter.

I just don't see the math for a 4-5% popular vote victory and an electoral college loss. He's not the type of candidate that will run up the score in blue states and underperform in swing states. That's more what you would expect if Warren was the nominee.

I expect a lot more cheating in close states. That said, I think it's entirely possible that Trump doesn't cheat enough in, say, North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas and somehow loses those despite rigging, say, Florida, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

SI

I think the assumption is some combination of voter suppression on a scale not seen before combined with inaccurate polling and then a Trump lead the night of the election leading to an attempt in the courts to throw out postal votes in as many states as needs to carry the election.

I mean if the second part is true it probably doesn't matter what Biden's lead is in the polls but still, this doesn't sound like an unlikely scenario to me at all.

My biggest worry is the mail in votes. Trump will lead on election day, declare victory and file a lawsuit to stop the counting. It goes up to the Supreme Court and they rule 5-4 to stop counting using Bush v. Gore as precedent.

A little more on undecideds from a Newsweek article. The article is right that many of the 10% undecideds are "leaning" one way or another so it says probably just 3% are truly undecided.

Undecided Voters Were Key to Trump's Win in 2016. Will They Deliver Again?

For whatever reason, there are people who vote reliably D or R who just hate the idea of being labeled and will tell everyone that they are independent, even if they haven't voted for someone in the other party in 20 years.

I don't buy Roberts (or Gorsuch) voting that way.

I think trying to figure out turnout with the virus and mail-in voting is damn near impossible. And then, yeah, the GOP is going to do all sorts of shit to reduce minority voting. We haven't had an election without the RNC consent decree in a long time.

I think Roberts would be more than happy to send Trump packing

SI

Yes me too and I think we would have bigger protests/riots everywhere then we have seen. Trump would unleash his federal goons, police, national guard riot troops and right wing militia to try to crush the protests. I think we would see it continue until something gave (impeach, he resigns) or it continues for his whole term.

White House says reducing record debt will be 'big second-term priority' for Trump

I wish I could believe him.

ETA: No I don't, because believing in Trump to do something positive like this makes you a gullible fool.

I don't diagree at all that's the best strategy. I do think though, that all available evidence strongly indicates they have every intention of doing so. Other than a small group of ticked-off Bernie Bros (who would be acting the same way under any candidate aside from Bernie) I've yet to see anything showing an enthusiasm problem on the Democratic side. If the issue was alienating those people you'd have a good point, but there's no indication that's happening in anything I've seen. They're mad enough at Trump (rightfully) that I think Biden could declare himself a Republican a week out and he'd still be elected POTUS as a Democrat.

Interesting thread here. In summary, the idea of the "shy Trump voter" doesn't really pan out in one way, but it might in another. There are not Trump voters saying they are voting for Biden in some polls because of shame. There might be (and would say most likely is) a large percentage of Trump voter who would never participate in a poll.

If we're going to talk about 'shy Trump' voters, it's worth being clear about what we're really talking about. The old version of the theory just doesn't make sense, but there are others that can't be discounted.

— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) September 10, 2020

I don't know if it affects this election (and, to be clear, neither does Nate Cohn).

But, as people's political attitudes become more intertwined with trust of the media and institutions generally, it does not seem far-fetched that "willing to be polled by a media organization" would become a politically-relevant factor. And one that, axiomatically, would be almost impossible to catch in polls.

South Carolina not even trying to be bipartisan:

SC adds Democratic Biden-Harris ticket to sample ballot after it was initially left off | Palmetto Politics | postandcourier.com

But if this is the case, wouldn't they be getting vastly different results in their demographic sampling?

I am a bit over my head with this, but here's how I understand it.

Pollsters have a pretty good estimate of who shows up to vote, broken down by race, gender, education level, age, etc.

Those numbers differ from the people who tend to answer surveys. So if you know, for example, that Hispanics tend to make up 10% of likely voters, but your poll ends up having 20% Hispanic respondents, you then weight their answers less to bring it back down to 10%.

Of course, we draw these boxes based on what we think are politically relevant factors. We know that certain groups of people tend to have similar political opinions. One of the lessons of 2016 is that, at least in Trump elections, education is a pretty big factor.

This thought experiment asks the question of what if likelihood of responding to a poll becomes a relevant factor for which you need to control.

That's kind of an unfixible problem if it ever comes into being.

There's a part of me that wishes for polls to become inaccurate to the point of irrelevancy and go away. I don't think that ever happens, but what albionmoonlight is talking about is probably already a factor, just not one with a strong enough impact to greatly matter yet. A society in which we didn't really know what most people thought about issues until we went and voted would be campaigned for, governed, and supported differently. In some ways better.

My son is having issues with online schooling and stress.

I realize that this might be a political hot take, but I am strongly considering voting for the party that is proposing to do literally something to bring the pandemic under control and against the party that is currently split between doing nothing and making the pandemic worse.

I think that I have become an anti-pandemic voter.

The Dept. of Education could have made re-opening schools better. And then imagine if the Senate was willing to help funds efforts to make schools safer.

Also, speaking of the frog boiling--the West Coast of the country is burning. And the President isn't marshaling any federal resources to help it. Or asking for money from Congress. Or doing anything at all. And we all just don't even blink.

The GOP has gotten us accustomed to a startlingly high level of incompetence. But it does not have to be this way. "The government is the problem" can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

We can choose a better path.

Town where I used to live. My neighborhood is the upper left https://m.facebook.com/1451888850/po...s8Lca3sYhl&d=n

10% of Oregon's population is under some level of evacuation order.

All a giant Antifa/BLM plot to make Trump look bad.

Biden and Pence elbow bumped at the 9/11 Memorial and shared a few cordial words. Trump and Biden won't overlap in Pennsylvania it seems, but I doubt you'd see the same reaction if they did.

Sadly doing so forces some people to acknowledge that black people are human beings whose lives have value. Given that, burn baby burn.

Gender reveal parties want in on this.

I LOL'd

SI

They're already comprised. They've been infiltrated by Antifa.

In all seriousness, that's what's going around Facebook. My wife's stepfather tried to pull my wife into a Facebook argument to confirm someone was arrested a mile or so from here trying to stsrt multiple fires on the side of the highway as proof this whole thing is staged by Antifa/BLM.

The problem is the guy was a methed out, homeless looking white guy. I guess it could have been a disguise.

Even a dude who ran for Senate in OR is out here spreading that Antifa crap....don't worry tho, he lost the primary to an open QAnon supporter.

Douglas County Sheriff Rebukes False Claims About Antifa Arsonists That Spread With Oregon Wildfire - Willamette Week

Imagine Trump trying to do anything close to that.

He would've signed that picture and told her it was worth $10K now.

and an aide would come by with a credit card machine for the lady to use to pay for the flower.

:lol:

I'm not sure I like Biden's 401k-and-like plan but the end goal is to reward & give more incentive to lower-middle income people to save more and I'm all for that.

Will that really happen when lower-middle income already don't have a lot of disposable income to put into 401k-and-like plans? I can see how this will help some in the upper-middle of the bell-curve but plenty will still be left behind.

https://taxfoundation.org/bidens-pro...-tax-benefits/

I agree. I like this idea. No reason not to do it.

But it does sound in this pervasive myth that poor people actually have all this secret money that we just need to encourage or trick them into using properly.

Still, a step in the right direction is a step in the right direction. So let’s take it.

And establishing the framework & mechanism for the government to make direct cash payments into people’s private retirement accounts is good as well.

This might help a bit:

This is a really big deal. Thank you @MikeBloomberg. Florida is winnable. If @JoeBiden wins Florida, which he will, he will be the next President of the United States. https://t.co/Puljb1Jf2F

— Fred Guttenberg (@fred_guttenberg) September 13, 2020

When do the "crazy, radical, fascist right" with famous fascist dictator ads start to run?

Why is Trump running commercials during the Jets/Bills game?

Had a good chuckle out of this. Geraldo Rivera family struggles.

https://pagesix.com/wp-content/uploa...trip=all&w=650

It is pretty clear that the PredictIt markets are manipulated by partisans who want the site to tell a certain story. I would suspect that each party has a hand in it. What's a better use of $500,000: a few more ads in Florida, or moving the markets to try and generate some "According to prediction markets, Biden is surging after the debates" free media?

Knowing that that markets are being manipulated, it has been funny to watch NC and Fla. moving opposite each other. NC is just barely red. And FL is just barely blue. And neither of them will "flip," and they tend to actually mirror each other. If, say, Florida goes from 51% Biden to 54% Biden, then you are likely to see NC go from 52% Trump to 54% Trump at the same time.

I think that in a pure market, you would see them shifting in the same direction, and the magical 50% barrier would not matter. But, in this market, I think that you have people on each side making sure that their state does not flip over to the other team.

There's a dissertation in there somewhere if PredictIt would ever let someone see the actual numbers of who is buying and selling.

Didn't watch the town hall so can't really tell how well he performed.

But reading what he said ... looks like Fauci will be back on TV if Biden wins.

My wife and watched it and he was very coherent and gave long detailed answers that had him giving various details. I did not catch any gaffes. I thought he did well.

He knows things and prepared for the event, so naturally some on the right are arguing that he had the questions in advance. They forget that their candidates used to work hard, too.

This will be the argument if Trump underwhelms in the debates.

McConnell is telling the Dems what to do if they manage to get the House, Senate, and Presidency:

MCCONNELL: "After they change the filibuster, they're going to admit the District as a state. They're going to admit Puerto Rico as a state. That's four new Democratic senators in perpetuity. Once they get a hammerlock on the Senate, they're going to then pack the Supreme Court."

— Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) September 18, 2020

And the Dems are so dysfunctional and afraid of actually using the power that the voters give them that they won't do anything like this.

I can see them admit the District as a state, tbh. Probably not the rest though.

Also, "Four new Democratic senators in perpetuity" is telling.

The Dems still have Senators in West Virginia, Montana, Alabama, etc. They moderate themselves to reach out to white, rural, southern, conservative, etc. states and voters. They are a national party.

In contrast, McConnell isn't even pretending that the GOP will or can change to be responsive to non-white voters. Just a complete "if the voters are black or Hispanic, we won't even try."

As telling as it is sad.

The district should be a state. The arguments against are just not legitimate.

The filibuster is already dead. Not even waiting this time.

I doubt eh Dems will eliminate the filibuster even if they had 59 members in the Senate. Feinstein is already hinting that she might bring back the blue slip rule.

Dem leadership sees power the same way that Trump sees exercise. They don't want to use it in case they then run out.

Yeah, I was listening to Fox News this morning to see what they said. They had some talking head on who was all indignant that the questions Trump got and the ones Biden got were so obviously skewed. They played a montage of both and the questions Trump got were all legitimate and relevant to what is happening in our world right now. Sorry that you have to be held accountable Donny Boy.

It's amazing that these people believe the Dems have the media, entertainment, education, social media, and now the military as part of the deep state yet believe they have a huge majority and the only way Dems win is by rigging elections.

Everything is rigged against Donny and he's just out there trying to keep liberals from raping and eating children. I mean, the tie he wears tells us everything and every now and then he acknowledges them by saying the number 17.

Admittedly, it does a great job of playing into the white Christian persecution complex. They're underdogs in a spiritual and cultural war.

If Trump was a normal prepared politician he actually could have answered them. They were 'tough' questions because he does no prep.

The debates will be fascinating.

Team Trump has, for some reason, lowered expectations for Biden through the floor. It's a bizarre strategy. Especially considering that Trump benefited from the Dems doing the same thing 4 years ago. They made Trump out to be such a monster that when he managed to stand on stage with Hillary for 90 minutes and not call her the C-word, people thought "OK, he's more Presidential than I thought."

So why Trump and his people think that "Let's tell everyone that Biden is senile, so when people see him give the same average debate performance that he's given all year in the primary, they will actually consider it a big win" is a good idea makes no sense to me.

I am constantly impressed by the success of the people pushing the complex. I am a White, Christian, straight, English-speaking, non-disabled male American with a stable job.

And I can tell you that from where I sit, it seems like White, Christian, straight, English-speaking, non-disabled male Americans with stable jobs have it better than any other group of people in the history of humanity.

I just can't do the mental gymnastics required to somehow see myself as persecuted or disadvantaged based on those traits.

There are things in my life that are good. And there are things in my life that are bad. But the bad things have nothing to do with the categories listed above. Those are either neutral or relatively large advantages.

This is an interesting take. I had never really thought of this but could be something to consider. It seems as reasonably likely as the silent Trump voters which don't appear to be all that shy these days.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/whose-vot...090014890.html

Yeah I mentioned a few pages ago about how Republicans are usually so good at this kind of thing. The problem is Trump is so arrogant that he can't play any sort of game that makes him look weak or builds up his opponent.

Well Asian-Americans do make more money than their white counterparts. But they are discriminated against when applying to Harvard.

The article reads like someone trying to talk themselves into something.

In aggregate they do. Some interesting stats from 2012 Pew survey.

The Rise of Asian Americans | Pew Research Center
Great that so many asian immigrants + children have achieved "success" (e.g. American dream). Need to continue the brain drain.


You're right but IMO this is okay. There are only so many ivy league schools and asian americans far exceed their proportion. Although not truly a zero sum game (but for all practical purposes, it is), the disproportion will result in other minorities losing out.

There's the argument about meritocracy, you get the highest grades, score the best in standardized tests, interview well etc. but we know there are legacy admissions (and influence from "contributions"). So yeah, lower or change the established selection standards, get more other minorities in there. It's for the better good.

A look at the data and arguments about Asian-Americans and admissions at elite colleges

100% disagree. Treating people unfairly is treating people unfairly, no matter who it is. If we can improve the situation vis a vis the influence of money let's do so, but it doesn't at all justify this approach.

Who in the world thinks college is only about the best grades or test scores? Why do colleges tout the college experience? Why do they play up the networking (which is why plenty of non-legacy folk aren't too upset about legacies... to a point). Why do folks talk about the benefit of having different perspectives (and it's not solely about race - it's also about geography and income diversity)?

The whole college is only about grades and tests has never exists and the vast majority of people wouldn't want it.

I'm glad some folks care that my people are being discriminated so much, but I can't imagine the uproar if 40% of the incoming class of Harvard becomes Asians (domestic and foreign) due to strict testing.

I went to Rutgers, one of the most diverse colleges in the country, and I learned a TON about different cultures which has provided me with a much better education than some of the classes I had to take (my science requirements for one, lol).

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I guess it depends on how one defines treating people "unfairly".

As I mentioned before, it's not a pure zero-sum game but for all practical purposes, it is due to very limited ivy slots. Someone wins, someone else loses. For someone it's fair, for someone else it's not. The ivy system right now advantages legacies, generous donors, and because ...

... smart american-asian kids have advantageous that other minorities have less of due to various reasons (see Pew poll I quoted) and it's not going to change anytime soon. So the way I see it, we need to change the acceptance criteria/process to give a temporary leg up.

5% of population, 22% of Harvard's freshman class. I'm not saying reduce it down to 5% but how about something like 10-15%.

Interestingly, international students are approx 23% of Harvard (GA Tech is also about 23%). Diversity from international students is definitely important but I'm all for reducing those high % to benefit more US minority enrollment.

Early voting starts on 10/12 8am-5pm in GA. Daughter wants to go vote in person so planning on going with her on a Sat, preferably at 8am.

Easy enough to go online and check if I'm registered to vote and to request an absentee ballot if I so desired.

I would argue that discriminating against someone because of their race is unfair.


What's wrong with 22%? Why should it be reduced at all?

Toss in gender, sexual orientation, national origin, race, age etc.

I agree it's unfair. The Ivy pie can't grow to accommodate all that want it and is, for all practical purposes, a zero-sum game/pie. One way or another, you take away from Peter (asian american) to pay Paul (blacks, hispanics, native americans etc.) or vice versa.

Is it fair that asian americans have "advantages" that gives them more opportunities & resources to excel in Ivy admissions? I'm guessing you think its fair but I'd think many blacks and hispanics will say it's not fair. The admissions criteria is never going to be "fair" for everyone. But that is the real world we live in right now and the process won't change much or as quickly without some sort of intervention.

The reason why we should intervene somehow is because there is a point where it becomes for the greater good. If one believes this (which you probably do not, but that's okay) when is that point?

So question for you. Is there ever a point where you think some sort of intervention should occur? Taking your stance in the purest form which I think is take no action, continue admissions based on merit + a little bit of legacy/contributions influence, it's likely asian americans would exceed the 22%. Would you take action if asian americans enrollment get to 30% or 40% or 50% of enrollment.

No easy answer for sure.

BTW - don't worry about being called a racist because the ADL definition is only when it "privileges white people". Since we are talking about privileging (or not) the yellow people, you are free and clear :)

My perspective is that two wrongs don't make a right. You don't fix one injustice by perpetrating another. If admissions are overly based on contributions/legacy/etc., the answer is to fix that problem. If education is too different for the poor than it is for the rich (it is), the answer is to mitigate that problem as much as possible. Due to the influence of parenting, you'll never get rid of it completely, but let's go as far as we can.

The answer is not to give more access to highly sought after and limited-availability training/education/whatever to those who are less qualified - by whatever best determination of qualification we can find. I.e., it doesn't have to be grades and test scores, but it shouldn't be 'these people haven't had a fair shake, so let's give more of it to them and less of it those who are more prepared/qualified'.

So apparently a doctor on Fox News is trying to say Biden is on speed and Adderall. I guess because Biden's town halls were so good. This is the ridiculously obvious issue with the Sleepy Biden has dementia attacks - when he shows he obviously doesn't, you have to invent other ludicrous lines of attacks.

Admittedly, you said it better than I did. The only think I would quibble is how long will it take. I would rather this happen sooner vs over a drawn out period, and that would require some sort of "intervention".


Not the focus of our asian american discussion but an interesting data point for some additional context. I think the athletic admissions comment below is red herring but legacy admissions and "donations" isn't.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019...&utm_source=tw

Is there ever a point where I think intervention should occur? As long as admissions are based on merit then no. It's not a hard question. What do you have against the student population being half asian?

Why would I be worried about being called racist? I'm not the one arguing for discriminating based on skin color.

"Merit" is based on criteria such as ACT, SAT, extra curricular activities etc. Not all, but many of these merit based criteria can be influenced by $ which many minorities do not have as much.

We were in a position to get ACT tutoring for my kids. Their ACT scores went up 3-4 points which is pretty significant, opening up more college options. A rich family can afford to help kid develop their musical abilities (and other talents) etc.

The problem I have with student population being over half-asian is because it's a zero-sum game/pie and that means other minorities (and their families) who weren't able to "enhance" their "merit" lose out.

So I'm all for changing, modifying "merit" criteria. However, the current merit criteria seems to overly advantage asian americans.

Why should we add another "state" that only has 700,000 people? Why not just fold them into Maryland since like 1/3 of Maryland's population is already DC suburbs?

If we do that then we have to fold Wyoming into another state since their population is less.

Combining Wyoming and Montana would probably be a decent idea. And then add DC as a state to keep it at 50 if that's important ;).

In your opinion.

In my opinion, it's a city. At 68 square miles, it's a fairly small city. If it was supposed to be a state, it would have been one of the Fourteen Colonies.

Of course in my opinion. What does this even mean?


And this argument continues to astound me every time it is made. There's a long list of things that were meant to be a certain way in 1789 that I'm sure as fuck aren't that way today.

Using PredictIt as sole source of information is kind of like using one news outlet like Fox News or MSNBC. For political betting markets, a better snapshot in time is a composite of multiple betting markets, such as this:

Betting Odds - 2020 U.S. President

https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status...058496/photo/1

Another idea: Merge Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas into the new state of "South Saskatchewan". The new "super state" would still have a population less then Massachusetts.

2nd tweet:)

(Correction: "South Saskatchewan would have a population approximately equal to Connecticut. Throw in *IDAHO* too, and you catch up to MA

I could maybe buy an argument that it should become part of another state, although its current population is more than Wyoming and the new census is likely to make it bigger than Vermont as well, with Alaska and the Dakota not much higher.

The fact remains that the residents of D.C. pay income tax and do not have representation that has a say on those taxes. There are no legitimate arguments to sustain that setup. I don't care if that's how it was in 1789, 1889, 1989, or how it will be in 2089.

What would pass the eye test as a state today? An adequate number of waterfalls? Tumbleweeds? Brothels?

Or perhaps that there are enough Americans, living within the continental US land mass, who are currently being denied full franchise... perhaps that's enough of a test?

Or is it people? Please don't sit in, say, Nevada, and tell us there have to be a certain number of people. Look it up, Nevada got the ultimate "bet on the come" deal there. DC has more people than some current states, it's rather simple.

I recognize that this doesn't necessarily differentiate between "make the district its own new state" and "jam it back up Maryland's ass" but at least recognizing these Americans deserve the same rights as the people in your *state ... at least that seems fair.

And if it's really just about "oh noes which party will win in the voting?" then fine, at least let's come clean and say that's what we care about.

South Saskatchewan would be the greatest state name.

Conservative views can win a majority of votes nationally. The problem is that white nationalism probably can't, and enough of the GOP is wedded to white nationalism that they can't imagine competing on different ground.

Only if the capital is renamed Moose Waffle or something similar.

The argument here seems to be trending that DC (which was specifically carved out as a donut hole from the existing states of Maryland and Virginia to serve as the seat of the Federal government) should be granted statehood like the subsequent states that were added as additional land was acquired via treaty, purchase or conquest.

I disagree, but I have no issue with giving citizens due representation by taking the residential boundaries of DC and annexing them into Maryland or Virginia, while leaving the land occupied by the Federal office buildings as the seat of the Federal government.

What you are listing as "merit" is only a fraction of the process when admission officers of elite schools evaluate who is accepted. There isn't a "line" of accomplishments that everyone above gets in and everyone below isn't. Elite schools goal in admissions is to include a diverse body of students, not just a cookie cutter "fit into this mold." No one gets in that is not "qualified", but many that may be "qualified" do not get in. Liberal Arts colleges believe in a holistic approach in acceptance, which means personality and drive will mean as much or more than a SAT score. As matter of fact, most schools are no longer going to take SAT/ACT scores in to account starting next year.

I think the fact they weigh too highly things like "legacies" and fund-raising is a real problem. Making sure their student body is diverse is not.

Screw that, name Fargo the capital and name Marge Gunderson the mythical hero of the state.

Oh wait... Sioux City, South Saskatchewan is a fantastic tongue twisting capital

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GWB was a shit student, but also became the President. Grades aren't a perfect predictor of outcomes.