Born with an Advantage

Generally speaking, I support affirmative action in universities because it increases diversity, and thus enhances universities' educational environments. However, I do see flaws to many affirmative action systems, and I can see how affirmative action is an unfair advantage. For the university applicants who benefit from affirmative action, most of them were born into this advantage. They did not determine their race, socioeconomic background, sex, ethnicity, etc. These students were born as a minority, or raised by parents who were not able to get out of a low income. Of course, there are many qualities to an applicant that they control such as life experience, grades, and extracurricular activities, but for the most part, they are born with an advantage of affirmative action.
However, I do believe that affirmative action is a beneficial system if it is structured properly. I am against the University of California's system, which eventually was removed, that gave diverse and disadvantaged applicants of race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic background an easier application process in their special admissions program. I feel that this system is unfair because it prioritizes diversity and advantages as the most important factor(s) rather than an applicants grades, life experiences, extracurricular activities, etc. Their system is very much discriminatory because of the way that it prioritizes diversity and disadvantages in their applicants.
Furthermore, I am in favor of quota systems in some context. I do not think that it is fair for universities to install quota systems, and ensure that they are filled no matter how qualified the applicants are outside of affirmative action policies. However, I feel that quota systems can be emphasized as long as all of the diverse applicants considered also meet the criteria of all applicants. I do not think that it is fair that a student is admitted simply because he is from another country, or of a minority ethnic group. However, if those same people are qualified as a student, compared to the other applicants, than they can fit into the university's quota system. If the university does not meet its quota system's goals due to a lack of qualified applicants, than it can be ignored. But, I feel that a qualified focused quota system can help to guide a university to maintain diversity. When learning about Harvard University's affirmative action policies, I learned that the University would not want to only have a little bit of diverse groups of people, because they may feel isolated. But, if diversity were to be present on the campus, than it must be present in large numbers. I feel that this qualified quota system would ensure that there is a large population of diverse students at a university, as long as the students are qualified.
I believe that diversity in affirmative action can act as a "plus" for college admissions programs, but that it cannot be everything. An applicant must be qualified in order to be admitted into a university, despite their diversity. Overall, I am in favor of affirmative action because it helps to enrich the overall educational environment of a university.