'The Mismatch Effect'.....

"....the system of affirmative action that enables hundreds of minority law students to attend more elite institutions than their credentials alone would allow. Data from across the country suggest to some researchers that when law students attend schools where their credentials (including LSAT scores and college grades) are much lower than the median at the school, they actually learn less, are less likely to graduate and are nearly twice as likely to fail the bar exam than they would have been had they gone to less elite schools. This is known as the "mismatch effect."

This so-called 'effect' does not make sense to me, why would going to a less 'elite' school improve the chances of a minority student graduating and passing the bar? It would seem to me that the 'elite' schools would have better faculty and resources that would be beneficial to the students, particularly if their credentials are much lower than the median of the schools.

Also what about the 'legacy effect' as the sub-par Geo. Bush exemplifies? No one attributes his lackluster performance as a student and as president, to the 'legacy effect'. There has got to be thousands of examples of sub-par 'legacy' admissions, and yet no one analyzes and criticizes their admissions, nor their eventual sub-par performances.

Also what about the hundreds of thousands of 'preferences' granted to returning servicemen and women from WW2, Korea and Vietnam under the GI bill? Would anyone argue against such a sensible investment in their education by providing preferential admissions, even if some eventually failed or dropped-out from their courses of study?

I definitely distrust the motivations of those who have 'coined' this term and definition. It makes more sense that such elite institutions would be ideally suited to help those students that have been marginalized, rather than hinder their march towards graduation.

Is the 'mismatch effect' theory, which smacks of elitism, discrimination and classism, just another rationalization to maintain and keep the lily-white elite's paternalistic grip and stranglehold, on the rest of society???

- just wondering?