He was, in a way. He is no doubt smart and an excellent student. But the Ivy's students are all smart, and his SAT's were median for Ivy League schools. 8 Ivy's all accepting him? His name and skin color clearly gave him that extra push over the top. Don't blame him though, he will succeed wherever he goes - rather, its just another example of the diversity zealotry within Academia (and Ivy's in particular) showing itself.
re: His name and skin color clearly gave him that extra push over the top.
No doubt about that. When our children were in high school they were all given two inch thick booklets of scholarship listings being offered at that time. Due to the fact that the majority of the scholarships offered were designated for minority students, those from low income families, those with a sob story to tell, or for students whose parents worked in a certain field, our children didn’t even qualify to apply for over 98% of the scholarships. To be factual, some of the scholarships didn’t limit in their wording to “minority only”, but if they stated that a preference was given to minority students, we knew that the application process and the required essays and hoops to jump through would amount to a huge waste of time.