I do not know if you have ever been to a country called the United States.There they do ask you(i.e Americans) which race you belong to, at your time of admission."Race and Ethnicity" are considered a criterion for admission in colleges in the United States.I have never heard of places like MIT,Harvard being shunned by serious academics for such a practice. Actually serious academics all over the world shun this attitude that "merit" is measured by examination scores alone, and is something that is absolute and independent of the socio-economic background of the student. I am myself a pass out from an IIT,a B.Tech. Please do not tell me that academics all over the world thinks "seriously" about a bunch of people most of whom join as "software coolies" in those IT firms in B'Lore.While IIT does produce the best brains of the country,no serious academic ever believes anybody to be brilliant simply by the dint of being an IITian. IIT is a middle class myth,that is being fed by the media.Hence, the middle class desperation and obsession to keep it elitist.That IIT lacks in social diversity is one of the reasons that most of its students come out as intellectually stunted "techies"
