🎓 Local sports quota admissions, does the system actually work fairly

A cousin recently got into a genuinely well regarded college specifically through the sports quota category based on her fairly strong state level badminton achievements, which sparked a genuinely long family discussion about whether this particular admission system actually works fairly overall, or ends up creating real, meaningful advantages for students who might not otherwise properly qualify academically on pure merit alone. My own view is that it genuinely serves an important, real purpose, rewarding students who dedicate genuinely enormous amounts of actual time and effort toward developing a real, competitive skill that ultimately benefits the country as a whole through improved overall sports representation and talent development at higher levels. An uncle pushed back fairly strongly during that same conversation though, arguing that some students apparently game the entire system deliberately, focusing purely on achieving the minimum specific sports credentials needed to actually qualify for admission rather than genuinely pursuing the sport itself with any real, lasting passion or commitment behind it. My cousin herself insists she genuinely trained seriously for years specifically because she loves badminton itself, and the college admission benefit was honestly more of a welcome, secondary bonus rather than her actual primary motivation for pursuing the sport that seriously in the first place, which I am inclined to genuinely believe given how long she has actually played it herself. This whole conversation made me realize how little I actually know about how these specific systems are properly verified and enforced generally, presumably some kind of genuine, formal certification process exists to confirm actual achievement levels claimed, though I honestly have no real clear idea myself how rigorous or genuinely thorough that particular verification process actually is in practice. Does anyone here have any real, direct experience with sports quota admissions themselves, either as an actual applicant or someone who has seen it used by family, and do you think the overall system genuinely works fairly as currently structured?

A neighbour's son missed out on a proper academic seat by just a handful of marks and watched someone with a fraction of his own talent walk straight in on a sports certificate that looked fairly questionable up close. Both things are probably true at once here, the system genuinely helps real athletes and still gets quietly gamed by plenty of others regardless.

My cousin got in through the sports quota years ago on genuine talent, trained six days a week from age nine and the paperwork barely mattered at all next to what she could actually do on the field during trials. Seen it work fairly for people who earned it properly, though I also know the same system gets misused elsewhere quite badly too.