When Fairness Depends on How We Judge Merit

Written for Harvard Crimson Global Essay Competition, 2025

Category: Argumentative

Prompt: Should elite universities prioritize merit or racial equity in admissions decisions? Argue which leads to a fairer society.

Region: Asia Pacific Region 

Debates over admissions to elite universities often can get framed as moral competitions between those who would uphold merit, or racial equity; as though fairness needs choosing one of these at the expense of the other. This framing hides the more core question at stake and how it relates to that debate: how societies should allocate their limited resources in ways that are just and durable. Elite universities don’t just provide an education; they provide a platform for capable students to gain experience in highly professional settings and build a strong network of experts and leaders. While prioritizing just racial equity addresses real and persistent disparities in society, elite universities should prioritize merit that is assessed in context, using environmental context as a consideration to assess merit rather than a primary criterion because a fair society depends on both social mobility and equity, and also on the trust in the legitimacy of its elite institutions. 

If properly understood, merit is not synonymous with privilege or a raw academic performance; rather it is a demonstrated capacity to succeed in a demanding (academic) environment, evaluated considering the societal constraints a student might face to achieve their performance. Elite universities rely on these kinds of standards because this sort of legitimacy is essential to their function in society. If admissions criteria are perceived as arbitrary, public confidence in such institutions erodes, weaking the role of universities as the credible gateway to education and opportunity that they are. Similarly, in a society where elite background can disproportionately influence access to a elite university, fairness needs to be upheld through rules that are sustainable for those that are admitted, but also to those falling short of the just requirements.  Assessing merit in context preserves this fairness by allocating valuable opportunities according to a demonstrated capacity rather than as a symbolic gesture. 

At the same time, a purely meritocratic system is insufficient because measures of merit themselves are shaped by unequal conditions to start with. Racial disparities in schooling, finances, community resources, and access to learning tools systematically distort how universities can evaluate potential. Treating a test score or extracurricular profile as a neutral indicator ignores the cumulative inequities that constrain students from long before they apply. Incorporating racial equity as a contextual background for judging acknowledges that race often operates as a symbol for structural barriers that suppress the visibility of students displaying their abilities. In this sense, equity is not a rejection of meritocracy, but a system to refine it and ensure that admissions reflect an actual underlying capacity rather than a socioeconomic advantage. 

Works Cited

Rucinski, Melanie, and Joshua Goodman. “Racial Diversity and Measuring Merit: Evidence from Boston’s Exam School Admissions.” Education Finance and Policy, vol. 17, no. 3, 2022, pp. 408–431, direct.mit.edu/edfp/article-abstract/17/3/408/97145/Racial-Diversity-and-Measuring-Merit-Evidence-from?redirectedFrom=fulltext, https://doi.org/10.1162/edfp_a_00343. Accessed 19 Feb. 2026.