| The author's article is on a question that I considered before. I agree with her that it may make the process more 'fair', however, she fails to consider one consequence of a switch to a lotto based system. Namely: How Much Should a Harvard Lotto Ticket Cost?[0] The author mentions that "This system would also alleviate the cost to families associated with students applying to increasing numbers of colleges", but I disagree. If you look at the system in terms of expected value, then what should you pay for that lotto ticket? (Note, I'm quoting a bit from my article, please excuse the laziness) Assume that you are actually applying to Harvard and they actually confess to using randomness in their admissions. Say that they still require a fee to submit your application. Today that fee is sitting at $75.00. Say that the ‘prestige’ of Harvard remains the same after this hypothetical confession to the use of randomness and that today’s median salary for a Harvard grad stays at ~$85,000.00/year. The questions then is: Should you apply to Harvard and hope to be a random applicant that gets in at the $75.00 price? Should you place a bet? After you go through the math and stats for a bit, the conclusion is that the price of a Harvard Lotto ticket should be ~$89,823.00 . That's ~1200:1 on your money. You should absolutely apply to Harvard if they held a lotto, and even if the number of applicants rose ~120,000%. I go through each of the Ivies and there is an update at the bottom on the top Universities and Liberal Arts schools in the US. Spoiler: CMU is not very 'worth it' (still a steal, all the same) and Carleton and Davidson are very 'worth it' for the admissions price. In the end: Go to college kids. The ROI is insane. [0] http://heffern.net/rob/index.php/2018/05/18/hello-world/ |