A kid has to work twice as hard to get out of the hood than a private school kid. Being born on third base doesn't mean you worked hard.
While I recognize the truth in that, I'm not sure how that's relevant here. Unless you mean to say that you think admissions should be based on where a person is coming from, and not on their race? Not everyone living in a "hood" is of a single race.
Also, let's say an elite college makes a certain number of slots available to race X based on percentage of population (or whatever). How likely do you think it is that those slots will be filled by people of race X from a "hood" versus people of race X from suburbia? I guess what I'm saying is that, if the problem is escaping from the hood, then that problem should be addressed more directly (in the hood) and non-racially (because, again, not everyone in a hood is of a single race).
I don't have the answers, but I don't think artificially lowering the bar for entry to elite schools or excluding those people who have worked hard and most deserve to be admitted is the correct solution. I think, probably, that finding ways to raise the qualifications of underrepresented groups so that they can better compete is more likely to be a solution where everybody wins.
Otherwise, our nation's most important national security interest, education, becomes a race to mediocrity. This would not be a good thing.
I do, however, think that our country would be well-served to ensure that any student that maintains a certain level of grades in HS can get a college education. Not necessarily at an elite school, and not at the cost of some other deserving student not being able to attend college. I just think it's in our national interest to find a way to have as well-educated a populace as possible. In fact I think it's a national security issue at least as important as defense funding.
