But they are not being punished! They are extremely represented (except for politics), much more than their population would indicate. The amount of Asians I've seen in elite schools like Harvard, Berkeley, Stanford is just mind blowing. Pure "merit" based would be a system which would solely rely on test scores/grades, which would give enormous advantage to people raised by "tiger parents." Elite schools are ideally made to find potential talents with the ability to impact society in a big way through original contributions, these people are not always the people with the best examination scores.