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Solution to Harvard’s admissions problem is simple: run a lottery

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Re: Solution to Harvard’s admissions problem is simple: run a lottery

#51

Post by agent008t »

Someone1234 wrote: post #29
taylodl wrote: post #7

"The admissions lottery I envision—which would involve applicants who meet a certain academic threshold—would help universities faced with large numbers of qualified applicants, such as Harvard, admit students in a more equitable way." The whole point to the modern university application process is they want more axis than academic achievement with which to evaluate prospective students. Did you play and do well in s…

> The lottery system depicted here is unfair to those students who've gone beyond and accomplished things. Conversely it might take some of the pressure off. As it stands there's never "enough." With a system that effectively caps you, you get to your lottery tier and can then back off. And considering how much the standards have increased over time to get into a school like this, that may not be a bad thing for ment…

Would you really want a future Feynman to be playing an admission lottery?

Re: Solution to Harvard’s admissions problem is simple: run a lottery

#52

Post by 40acres »

Harvard doesn't have an admissions problem, they have an image problem that was brought to light by a controversial lawsuit. The institution known as Harvard is basically a massive investment firm that just so happens to run a school -- if Harvard's (and other elite, mega wealthy colleges) stated mission was to promote general education they could open up additional campuses and increase admissions without sacrificing much in the way of educational quality. Even if Harvard was half the school it is today it would still be a fantastic education.

Harvard is trying to have it's cake and eat it too with it's selection process, there are a set amount of priorities they have with each class and need to balance these priorities out, namely: Admit enough legacy / wealthy students to placate the donor class, have a relatively diverse set of kids so that they can claim diversity, grab some kids with "exceptional talent" (maybe a great musician here and there) and pad out the rest with kids that have perfect SAT scores.

I honestly don't think this is a problem that can be solved. Harvard deliberately caps the amount of students they accept and their capacity to accept these students to maintain it's elite reputation, combine that with the fact that their student body needs to reflect the principles they tell the world (diversity more so that absolute quality) and you will have situations like this.

Re: Solution to Harvard’s admissions problem is simple: run a lottery

#53

Post by subjectHarold »

agent008t wrote: post #42
dannykwells wrote: post #4

This presupposes that colleges truly want their admission process to be fair, which they absolutely don't. Then, how would they get to admit legacy students with wealthy parents? Also, admitting that getting admitted is based on luck directly contradicts the narrative of meritocracy in college admissions, which would decrease the perceived prestige of the school. So yeah, no way would Harvard go for this.

Don't know about Harvard, but I was involved with interviewing candidates for CS admissions at Oxford. Everyone involved that I worked with most definitely wanted to admit the best, most capable students and could not care less about legacy students or wealth. The institutions in "the West" are really not as bad as some of us would like to think. Furthermore, undermining the public faith in these institutions can ser…

Is that the same university that admits more from eight private schools than from 3/4 of the state school system? Yep, sounds like a fair system. Cool story bro.

Re: Solution to Harvard’s admissions problem is simple: run a lottery

#54

Post by blodstone »

reallydude wrote: post #23
lettergram wrote: post #6

Harvard doesn’t have an admissions problem. It’s a highly successful institution, that has lasted for hundreds of years and is not public. Meaning - they clearly are doing something correct and are not beholden to what we feel is “fair”. They aren’t doing anything illegal, so there is no problem. Perhaps it doesn’t jive with some sensibilities, but it’s not their responsibility to cater to anyone’s sensibilities. The…

》 Meaning - they clearly are doing something correct Good/Correct as in a self subsidized oligarchy?

It is definitely correct. Good is debatable.

Re: Solution to Harvard’s admissions problem is simple: run a lottery

#56

Post by ryandrake »

taylodl wrote: post #7

"The admissions lottery I envision—which would involve applicants who meet a certain academic threshold—would help universities faced with large numbers of qualified applicants, such as Harvard, admit students in a more equitable way." The whole point to the modern university application process is they want more axis than academic achievement with which to evaluate prospective students. Did you play and do well in s…

Any system is going to be unfair to somebody. It could be argued that evaluating students along all these semi-relevant axes like sportsball skills and robot-building is unfair to the people who busted their asses on academic achievement and got perfect SATs. No matter what solution they choose, some group of people will have a legitimate gripe about its fairness.

Re: Solution to Harvard’s admissions problem is simple: run a lottery

#57

Post by babyslothzoo »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #37
uasm wrote: post #14

The true solution though, would be for people to wake up and realize that in most cases, those so-called "ivy-league" colleges set you up for nothing you couldn't have gotten elsewhere. That you're NOT in-fact better off at 22 with a 150,000$ debt, which you could've avoided by attending a different institute. That the quality of education in "less prestigeous" universities doesn't necessarily "fall" from that of Har…

The education isn't anything special. For certain circles, though, the status of an ivy sheepskin is of utmost importance. State U isn't good enough for the silver spoons. Harvard is also not indebting those lucky enough to attend given it's generous scholarships.

The value in elite universities is the network

Re: Solution to Harvard’s admissions problem is simple: run a lottery

#58

Post by motohagiography »

From a statistical perspective, in a fair random lottery, would not the shape of the probability distribution of attributes of winners necessarily match that of the resulting qualified applicants?

If fairness is defined in this approach as a process that does not add information to the system, and in this case actually removes both information (bias) and noise (bias) equally, all it would serve to do is further obfuscate the cause of being admitted.

For an admissions lottery to be considered "fair," you have to assume the participant selection is fair, and that the functioning of the university itself is indifferent to who it gets. Maybe they should A/B test it, where some are admitted at random and their success compared against the traditional admissions process. Arguably, that's even what "legacy," students provide, a sample independent of the admissions process.

That we're having this discussion at all is a greater indicator of the waning of the university system as meaningful process, and how undergraduate education is subject to Goodhart's Law, where it has ceased to be a useful measure of aptitude, competence, or much at all anymore really.

Re: Solution to Harvard’s admissions problem is simple: run a lottery

#59

Post by Someone1234 »

agent008t wrote: post #51
Someone1234 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The lottery system depicted here is unfair to those students who've gone beyond and accomplished things. Conversely it might take some of the pressure off. As it stands there's never "enough." With a system that effectively caps you, you get to your lottery tier and can then back off. And considering how much the standards have increased over time to get into a school like this, that may not be a bad thing for ment…

Would you really want a future Feynman to be playing an admission lottery?

Would a future Feynman really do enough extra curricular that have nothing to do with their area of expertise to even get into a school like Harvard? Likely not... If anything a lottery would increase their chances compared to the status quo.

Harvard and similar schools have moved beyond just being smart. Everyone who applies is super smart. Now the yard stick is smart++ (meaning they want you to be "well rounded" which is code for having a bunch of self-driven/extra curriculars/special skills/x-factor etc to make you a stand out).

Re: Solution to Harvard’s admissions problem is simple: run a lottery

#60

Post by trowawee »

agent008t wrote: post #51
Someone1234 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The lottery system depicted here is unfair to those students who've gone beyond and accomplished things. Conversely it might take some of the pressure off. As it stands there's never "enough." With a system that effectively caps you, you get to your lottery tier and can then back off. And considering how much the standards have increased over time to get into a school like this, that may not be a bad thing for ment…

Would you really want a future Feynman to be playing an admission lottery?

...kinda, yeah. Feynman's an interesting choice of example, actually; he wanted to attend Columbia, couldn't get in because of anti-Semitism, and then attended MIT before it was "MIT, Famous Engineering School", when it was still basically seen as a vocational school for middle-class students. I think the whole higher education system would benefit from having people like that scattered throughout it, rather than concentrated at a handful of elite universities.
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