From an Interesting New Yorker Article

By Malcolm Gladwell (author of Blink and The Tipping Point) on the selectivity of Ivy League schools and especially Harvard in regard to the admission process. Gladwell details Harvard's longstanding tradition of finding that perfectly handsome, athletic WASP that will enter, and that tradition still holds true even in recent years. The last paragraph:

"In the nineteen-eighties, when Harvard was accused of enforcing a secret quota on Asian admissions, its defense was that once you adjusted for the preferences given to the children of alumni and for the preferences given to athletes, Asians really weren't being discriminated against. But you could sense Harvard's exasperation that the issue was being raised at all. If Harvard had too many Asians, it wouldn'’t be Harvard, just as Harvard wouldn'’t be Harvard with too many Jews or pansies or parlor pinks or shy types or short people with big ears."

Quite a contentious statement from Gladwell. I personally have always admired the upstanding academic traditions of Harvard, and, even though it gives preference to the athletes and legacy children, I believe that it is a bastion of goodness and integrity.