I don't want to sound like a cynic but it seems many middle class white students with mediocre grades compensate for the slots eaten up my race/ethnicity based affirmative action.
They do it through disability admissions. I had a couple of friends from college that got into medical school by claiming "dygraphia"--apparently this is fairly common but good enough of a disability to get into
http://www.med.stanford.edu/
I don't really have a problem with all this preferential treatment stuff. Maybe I'm just cynical but if everyone who got a degree from the finest institutions or got a job at the best firms were the best and brightest this country produced then why aren't all our presidents the same moral and intellectual calibre as Abraham Lincoln? or FDR?