Ethics of Interviews

My friends and I have begun applying for graduate schools and jobs for next year, and I have realized a very large ethical problem with the system. Many programs have required interview weekends (which are often actually in the middle of the week) that applicants must attend in order to get a position or be admitted to a school. The problem with this is that many students cannot financially afford to travel across the country or take time off of work, and these students are instantly weeded out. One shocking example is the Jesuit Volunteer Corp. that my roommate is applying to. They have a required interview weekend with three locations, one in Washington D.C., one in Chicago, and one on the west coast. My roommate is busy for the Chicago date, so in order for him to be considered, he would have to spend hundreds of dollars to travel to Washington D.C.. This is already an incredibly demanding requirement, but if he were to be an a position in which he had to work to pay for his tuition, it would be impossible, and this is for a program that is supposedly aimed at helping the poor. The idea of mandatory interview weekends may seem on the surface to be useful for schools or organization to get to know candidates before they accept them, but it actually works to actively discriminate against those who cannot afford to travel.