The SFFA v. Harvard trial revealed elite admissions as a sorting machine with wildly unequal gates. Recruited athletes enjoy an 86% admit rate, legacies 34%, while non-ALDC applicants face under 5.5% — a roughly 17-fold gap. Applicants are sorted into lanes before files are read.

Race adjustments create stark disparities. An identical applicant modeled by plaintiffs' economist Peter Arcidiacono had a 25% chance as Asian American but ~95% as African American. Harvard's experts disputed the specification but not the direction: personal-rating and race adjustments did not fall evenly.

Price discrimination is extreme. The $97,985 sticker price is a fiction; net price ranges from $0 to $98k based on federal and CSS Profile formulas. A $175k household with home equity and 401(k) is judged "full pay," paying near-sticker from after-tax income.

Demographic accounting shows Asian students roughly quadruple their share from population to elite tier. The "hook paradox": groups heavy on legacy/athletics (white, ~43% ALDC admits) see their unhooked "merit" pool shrink because hooked admits already spent the seats. Merit seats per 18-year-old are a firehose for Asians, a rounding error for most.