University of Michigan admissions point system 80 points — GPA 12 points — SAT scores 10 points — Academic strength of high school 8 points — Strength of high school curriculum 10 points — Michigan resident 6 points — Underrepresented Michigan county 2 points — Underrepresented state 4 points — Legacy admission 3 points — Essay 5 points — Personal achievement 5 points — Leadership and service 20 points — Socio-economic disadvantage 20 points — Underrepresented racial-ethnic minority 5 points — Men in nursing 20 points — Scholarship athlete 20 points — Provost's discretion -- via CalPundit

The main reason people are scrutinizing this list is, of course, that the University of Michigan has gone to the Supreme Court to defend the "20 points — Underrepresented racial-ethnic minority" line. But what I find striking is how few points are allotted for the essay (3), personal achievement (5), and leadership (5) (though happily legacies get only 4 bonus points). It seems that if the university is really interested in promoting a student body with diverse interests and experiences and contributions to campus, these things ought to be given at least as much weight as SATs. I think there's something to Goblin Queen's argument that the kinds of diversity that affirmative action is looking at could productively be ascertained by scrutinizing the applican't actual experience, rather than using the somewhat crude proxy of race (though I wonder what that would mean in terms of application processing time, especially for public schools with large student bodies).