[verisimilidude]

You contradict yourself. If the top 5% of any school is magically qualified to attend the top universities, then what incentive would any school really have to improve? You'd literally flip the incentive structure in education, such that parents would eventually be fighting to get their kids into the worst schools, with less competition, in order to increase their chances at college admissions. It's a race to the bottom.

[lighthawk]

I didn't say they were magically qualified.

I said the school had to meet the standards of the university. If the school is extremely difficult and the top 5% of the class doesn't have the same GPA as someone from another school that is less stringent but still meets the standards of the university, then students from the top 5% GPA of both schools would be able to apply.

And what is wrong about providing incentive for the best students to get into schools that are not performing quite as well but are still certified by the university as being adequate? It is much better for top performing students to spread out and raise the bar.

It is far from a race to the bottom. It's about bringing up the bottom.

[verisimilidude]

It's not going to work with the Ivies, in the US, because the whole process will surely become scattered. Each remotely capable school will find a way to game the system and get qualified. You're really screwed if you go to a school that cannot qualify, which would likely include most of the students who need this help the most. The system is still money chasing money.

The only way this works is through public education, where the K-12 system is tightly coupled with an elite public university system, and public policy can drive both into a tight partnership. There's a system somewhat like this in California called TAG; any student who signs up and makes grades in community college can usually get guaranteed entry into a UC. It only works because the California community colleges are required to teach all "transfer courses" at the UC level in terms of content, etc. It might be possible to extend this kind of guaranteed enrollment down to K-12.