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Top colleges should select randomly from a pool of ‘good enough’ (2005)

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Re: Top colleges should select randomly from a pool of ‘good enough’ (2005)

#241

Post by _Nat_ »

This ISN'T a social-justice article.

Picking the top applicants backfires because people game it.

For example, consider Students A and B who're mostly identical except Student A likes to binge on Wikipedia while Student B spends every night doing SAT practice problems. Colleges that select only the top applicants get the B's of the world, who optimize their observables, while the A's seem somewhat less competitive on paper.

If you change the rules -- like you start focusing on clubs, volunteering, or even just skipping the Top-1% -- the gamers'll adjust their strategies, out-performing the non-gamers who develop actual talents. The top colleges end up getting flooded by gamers who're focused on looking good.

The pragmatic solution proposed in this article is to randomly select "good enough" applicants. This allows colleges to take in the top-performing non-gamers who have a wealth of actual skills (rather than gaming hacks) while also reducing the incentive for gamers to waste their time gaming the system.

Re: Top colleges should select randomly from a pool of ‘good enough’ (2005)

#242

Post by DoreenMichele »

_Nat_ wrote: post #241

This ISN'T a social-justice article. Picking the top applicants backfires because people game it. For example, consider Students A and B who're mostly identical except Student A likes to binge on Wikipedia while Student B spends every night doing SAT practice problems. Colleges that select only the top applicants get the B's of the world, who optimize their observables, while the A's seem somewhat less competitive on…

FWIW, you've made me want to read the article (which may not happen, but thank you).

Re: Top colleges should select randomly from a pool of ‘good enough’ (2005)

#243

Post by shajznnckfke »

a1369209993 wrote: post #227
shajznnckfke wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like this policy would be too easy to hack - just find out which majors are only offered at UCB or UCLA or whatever school you want to go to.

Why are there any majors that are only offered at a single school? That seems like a much bigger problem than people being able to pick which school they want to go to.

You could have a college major in any possible area of academic inquiry, which means the number of potential college majors is unlimited. Each school can only have so many faculty and they have to balance various factors when deciding who to hire. More resources dedicated to offering new majors might mean less resources going to popular majors that are overenrolled.

Re: Top colleges should select randomly from a pool of ‘good enough’ (2005)

#244

Post by csa »

compsciphd wrote: post #47
kepler1 wrote: post #35

I know the person's intentions are good in putting forth such an idea, but the problem with intentions is that they're always good. But they often ignore the bad side effects of the idea when it comes to putting it into practice . First, let's not mince words here -- this suggested policy is about lowering the bar for admission to top universities so that some previously unqualified tier of applicants has a better sh…

people say that Ivy's get such a large number of applicants and accept such a small percentage that they could take their applicant pool, accept one cohort, put it aside, accept another cohort and the 2nd cohort would be just as successful as the first cohort. If that is true, its not about lowering the bar, as both cohort pass the same bar, its just about increasing fairness. if its not true, then yes, you are corre…

Imho, this is not true.

If you take the bottom 1/3 of any ivy class and replace it with the next folks in line, then I would probably agree in a hand-wavy kind of way.

Some points:

1. The folks who barely missed getting into (somewhat randomly) Columbia will most likely get into a place like Cornell. Is there really a loss there?

2. The folks who barely miss getting into Cornell will most likely get into a place like NYU. For most of these folks, is there really a loss there? My guess is that, at most, they lose some cocktail party swagger.

3. The top (15-30%?)of the classes at the Ivies really makes those schools academically. That said, there are a lot of other folks at the school that have significant social and intellectual capital to the schools. Athletes are one group, folks who demonstrably know how to get stuff done on a regional/national/international level are another group. Using these criteria to assess merit will produce a class not dissimilar to what we see now.

Re: Top colleges should select randomly from a pool of ‘good enough’ (2005)

#245

Post by DiggyJohnson »

emddudley wrote: post #211
flowerlad wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You go to your local high school Parents are often willing to move to areas where there are good schools.

Yes, but students don't make that choice. Parents do.

You don't think parents make decisions based on what they believed to be in their child's best interest?

Re: Top colleges should select randomly from a pool of ‘good enough’ (2005)

#246

Post by hakfoo »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #130

One interesting example is the UT system. Because affirmative action was banned in Hopwood v. Texas, the UT system resorted to a program where they accept the top 10% of each high school's class into all UT schools. It's an interesting way of doing admissions, albeit not perfect. One critique that I'm anticipating seeing is that this encourages going to a mediocre high school. Except...getting good students to go to…

Any "top nn%" rule asks for another form of toxic gaming of the system.

At least back around the turn of the century, in Arizona, the state universities gave a full tuition waiver for the top 25 or 33% of the graduating class. (Not sure if they still do) This seems at its face to be a very inclusive goal-- you'd make the program accessible to students regardless of finances.

But some schools were so aggressive on the AP and other 'weighted' programmes (A=5.0, B=4.0, etc.), that the valedictorian would have something like a 4.6 GPA, and even a standard 4.0 might not clear the top 25%. It would not be enough just to be an excellent student, you had to explicitly load up on weighted courses-- and of course, there were no weighted fine arts or vocational courses.

This leads to a bunch of toxic outcomes. A straight A student would rank below someone with an A/B record, because she chose the right courses to take. There was pressure to choose the courses which bumped the GPA as opposed to the ones which fit interests or potential commercial utility, which I suspect would lead to resource starvation and classes cancelled due to undersubscription.

Re: Top colleges should select randomly from a pool of ‘good enough’ (2005)

#247

Post by tomp »

a1369209993 wrote: post #228
tomp wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're conflating the principle and the implementation. Meritocracy is good in principle , but your specific metric is bogus. Feel free to criticize the implementation/metric, but that's not a valid criticism of the underlying principle. As an analogy, safe driving is a good principle. Assessing the safety of a driver by past behaviour ("this person hasn't crashed in a while") is decent but biased metric. E.g. "drunk…

To be fair, "it's impossible to implement this principle, and every attempt inevitably backfires" is, if actually true , a pretty damning criticism of a underlying principle in its capacity as something you'd actually want to implement.

Same could be said about Democracy, freedom, peace, safety, equality, ... so suffice to say, I disagree.

Re: Top colleges should select randomly from a pool of ‘good enough’ (2005)

#248

Post by ffggvv »

_Nat_ wrote: post #241

This ISN'T a social-justice article. Picking the top applicants backfires because people game it. For example, consider Students A and B who're mostly identical except Student A likes to binge on Wikipedia while Student B spends every night doing SAT practice problems. Colleges that select only the top applicants get the B's of the world, who optimize their observables, while the A's seem somewhat less competitive on…

right but if you’re looking for people who will succeed in college (or the corporate world)

wouldn’t you be looking for people who can achieve based on specified rules and fun to within a system, instead of undisciplined people who can’t do that but may naturally be intellectually curious?

the first makes a terrific employee, the second might not put in hard work for stuffthey don’t find interesting or may leave altogether

Re: Top colleges should select randomly from a pool of ‘good enough’ (2005)

#249

Post by dr_dshiv »

chillacy wrote: post #144
dr_dshiv wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? I think legacy helps with the culture of a school. Legacy shouldn't get you in, but it should be part of the overall intention of class composition. If some 20% of people are good enough and have a family connection, I think it makes the institution stronger.

Sometimes maybe. Other times you have this story https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-07-16/qatar-pr... Ultimately it reinforces a culture where influence can be passed to children.

What? That story had nothing to do with legacy. Legacy isn't about ultra rich people. It's about being able to send your kids to the same school you went to.

Re: Top colleges should select randomly from a pool of ‘good enough’ (2005)

#250

Post by dehrmann »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #130

One interesting example is the UT system. Because affirmative action was banned in Hopwood v. Texas, the UT system resorted to a program where they accept the top 10% of each high school's class into all UT schools. It's an interesting way of doing admissions, albeit not perfect. One critique that I'm anticipating seeing is that this encourages going to a mediocre high school. Except...getting good students to go to…

I don't know the answer, and this isn't a leading question, but you left out the interesting bit: what are the predictors of success in college?
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