It’s safe to say that most seniors, after slaving away on their college applications, have spent tremendous effort applying for colleges.

Sadly, not all applicants receive equal consideration. This is due to two highly exclusive and unfair factors that come into play: affirmative action and legacy admission.

Affirmative action, by favoring historically underrepresented groups, aims to right wrongs and promote diversity.

Although this system may help alleviate the guilt of the colleges, it is inherently unfair and can simply result in reverse discrimination. If nothing else, it results in resentment among those who qualify for a school academically but don’t happen to be a member of a favored group. Combating discrimination with yet more discrimination is not a good solution.

Legacy, which favors ancestry over merit, is even more noxious as a practice. Through this system, colleges favor students who are children (and, to a lesser extent, siblings and grandchildren) of alumni.

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, legacy applicants had a 23.3 percent increase in the likelihood of getting admitted, and students with the particular title “primary legacy” (having a direct relation to the alumni) were found to have a 45.1 percent better chance. This high margin itself shows how much of a preference colleges have towards children of alumni, making it unfair by making the likelihood of these students being accepted much more than a student who might have actually worked for a spot in the university.

An alternative to these flawed systems is one  based on both merit and financial need. Though doing so is already a risky process, having one that has the potential to harm unqualified students and boosting the likelihood of acceptance based on race of familial relation is not the way to go. As a result of having more ethical factors go into an acceptance, the diversity of a university’s student body would dramatically increase, consisting of people coming from a greater number of ethnic, socioeconomic and religious backgrounds.

As the number of people increases and acceptance rates dwindle ever lower, colleges must look past flawed ways of thinking and implement an alternative that benefits all people based not on their ethnicity or the achievements of their parents, but on the merit of their own hard work. In other words, just be fair to all applicants.