The funny thing about the Ivy League and other elite private schools is they've never been meritocracies. They're privately funded and can do whatever they want. They generally recruit people mostly from backgrounds that suggest they will be able to afford attending the school and then contributing towards it later in life. They're very worried about admissions stats like yield ratios, acceptance ratios, and the like because the numbers they report are scrutinized and affect their profile relative to their competitors. Donors and alumni groups obsess over those reports. So the Ivy League really does prefer the type of students that go to the type of schools and come from the type of places that suggest they will accept an offer of admission. For poorer students, who they recruit less, they do extensive screening and due diligence. Also, it's easier to make money when you come from money, Ivy pedigree or not. Recruiting financially well-off students will make it much more likely that the schools get an ROI from those kind of students in the form of donations. Hell, some families make donations prior to their kid applying to the school to encourage them to accept them.
Even within the white gentile population, the Ivy League skews heavily towards Episcopalians, who have the most college and postgraduate degrees and highest incomes of any other Christian denomination despite being much smaller in membership.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episcopal_C...Membership
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/0...nd-income/
It's impossible for admission into the top schools to be based strictly on numbers. There's only so few slots for so many people who apply. It's a high stakes game and the kinds of things people must do now to distinguish themselves is ridiculous.
Asians and Jews are far wealthier than white gentiles on average. They can afford the tools to gain an edge in this game. White gentiles will always be underrepresented relative to their numbers. Yet race in general is very superficial and not particularly helpful in analysis. If you look within subsets of white gentiles, you'll find disproportionately successful groups like Mormons, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians.
The majority of white gentiles who are not part of successful Christian groups and are relatively poorer have the cards stacked against them. You won't find too many Bill Clintons in the Ivy League. Few and far between. And you can blame their lack of success for the kind of things Feisbook Control was talking about - a cultural problem.
African-Americans have also seen a degradation and outright stripping of their native African culture when they were brought as slaves to the United States, as well as the influence of poor white gentile habits and ideas.
As I mentioned earlier, the immigrants from African countries that had once been a source of slaves for the Americas (Nigeria, Ghana, etc) have seen outsized educational outcomes in this country. So, it's not about race so much as culture. Even during the 17th century, Africans were viewed generally positively throughout the Americas. The notion of race and its related assumptions as we understand them didn't evolve until later.
Back to the topic, the Ivy Leagues also recruit heavily from the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states (more than 40% of their student bodies), and historically always have. This region of the country is now home to roughly half of the country's Jewish population but only 20% of white gentiles.
Jews now go to the type of elite high schools they had historically been barred from attending; the kind of places that serve as "feeders" to the Ivy League.
As for the Unz article, it seems to have gotten some mainstream support, though some academics have disputed his numbers (
http://andrewgelman.com/wp-content/uploa...icle.pdf).
Regardless of what the official numbers are, I'm not surprised by his thesis, but I don't think it goes far enough as it does not analyze the diverse socioeconomic makeup of white gentiles.
However, the administration of most Ivy League schools are dominated by Jewish-Americans.
http://thezog.wordpress.com/who-controls...vy-league/
Same with the Supreme Court. Nine members. Three Jews.
I know as a group that's 2% of the population nationwide, that seems alarming, but it doesn't feel like 2% when you live in the most prominent cities (NYC, LA, Miami, Chicago). They all have a much larger percentage of Jews and a very visible imprint of Jewish culture in many areas. Jews happen to live in the most prosperous areas of the country and do well in those places.
Like I've said, they have a great culture and antisemitism ironically has only served - and forced really -to make them stronger as a group.
The Talmud is very different from most dogmas, which generally instruct followers to "obey" and not even question what they're being told, whereas the Talmud is essentially an ongoing debate about what is Jewish Law and its implications for life.
I think that also lends to the cultivation of a different kind of intelligence just as many Asians credit Confucianism in their cultural success. It's not just being smart, disciplined, and goal-oriented, but also about creativity, ingenuity and thought leadership. Jews have made quite an impact in those intangible areas more than any other group.