Agree with JonLaw. Top colleges do not claim to be strictly merit based in their admissions. There are many other factors that come into play. Just some of them -- ability to pay, gender balance, desire for a "balanced" class with diverse accomplishments and interests, ethnic diversity, economic class diversity, geographic diversity, need to fill certain types of skills for the school (eg, athletic).
"Nations which put their future national leadership in the hands of such individuals are likely to encounter enormous economic and social problems"
Exactly what has America (and most of the rest of the world) done for the past hundreds of years by shutting women out of top education and job opportunities? If colleges went by strictly "merit based" admissions today, boys would lose out to girls by a large margin in terms of the 'merit' measurements of GPA and test scores. It is significantly easier for boys to be admitted to top schools with lower statistics because women are doing so much better in the classroom and in testing now that they have been given the opportunity. I am pretty sure that is not what most readers of the American Conservative (source of this article) would like to see.
