Yes - your point about government is a true one. However, if we are going to have a society based on meritocracy, should we not at least try to foster merit in all aspects of college admissions regardless if those preferences come from government or alumni or those who run the place?
Your point about the purpose of athletes is undeniable. But those same school would still field football teams and basketball teams if they simply had to recruit among the admitted student body. Those of greater athletic ability but lesser academic ability would inevitably find their way to lesser schools where academically they would be a far better fit and they could play there. Is the purpose of elite schools to field a great football team or is it to educate the student body?
I like what the Ivies do even though they cannot give "athletic scholarships"
they use what is called the IVY index
here is how it works (or it did at the time I met with the AD during my 30th reunion in 2011)
a student is rated on his
SAT
Class Rank
GPA (with weighting for the HS)
80 points each
so a "perfect" applicant would be 240 points
Yale's average was 221.8 IIRC-Harvard was two but almost the same
overall the Ivies allowed each school a certain number of "slots" based on the # of undergraduates. Yale, under former President Levin, wouldn't allow the admissions office to honor all those slots (a oft recited reason for Harvard kicking yale ass in football over the last decade)
acceptance rates for athletes on the list was around 80%--206 out of 256 one of the years I was told the numbers.
however, no team could average more than ONE DEVIATION (I do not recall what that meant in scores) than the average student and no one on that list to the admissions office could be lower than 2 DEVIATIONS below the average student
this meant that some Ivy coaches would put a kid on the list that might not be stars but would allow him to recruit a kid that was at the bottom of the acceptable numbers.
I know this when I tried to sell a pair of twins (one a girl, one a boy) to the coach at another school. The girl had great numbers (a 235 on the scale) and her brother was decent-about average at the school in question. He told me if I could get the girl to commit, he'd take her brother too since the men's team and and the women's team were grouped as one unit by the admissions office.. He said the girl would allow him a top recruit whose numbers weren't as good. Didn't work out-the girl was recruited by another school where she ended up starting as a freshman.
but that is how it works at the ivies. that a school like Yale could win the NCAA Hockey Title was amazing given the restrictions