[supernova87a]

First of all, a major issue here is that we don't have enough good universities to accept all the talented kids applying. That holds true for high schools, etc. wherever there is contentious debate over "equity" or merit-based admissions. Just increase the number of good schools (which has not been done in proportion to population growth) and many things are solved.

Just like how you never hear people in countries with great broadband access complain about usage caps. That's a purely US (or other country) phenomenon when you have shitty supply of broadband. Increase the supply, competition, and problem solved.

Secondly, a question for those who feel that colleges have a duty to "shape our future generation leaders who should look like the people they represent". Tell me, for all the mental contortions, evaluations, interviews, processes to make flawed judgement calls on whether people "contribute by their diversity" to the student body, how different an outcome does that achieve over just using an objective test, and then admitting everyone above a certain bar?

These colleges receive enough applicants to admit 3-4 classes worth of valedictorians. Yet they seem to think their admissions scrutiny and processes make their classes a much better place than if they had a simpler process. Is that true? Judge people on skill and talent, for every type of academic program a university offers. Simple rules and processes allow people do creative things. Contorted rules and processes incentivize people to do stupid things. Like having 17 year olds compete in an essay contest to see who is the most disadvantaged and worthy therefore of admissions.

I don't think they've tried serious alternatives, yet they believe these complicated admissions systems to be correct. And you look to other countries that have purely exam-based admissions, yet they are not producing classes full of socially inept, non-contributing, non-leaders.

Maybe it's worth a rethink. Or some new kinds of institutions.

[csa]

> First of all, a major issue here is that we don't have enough good universities to accept all the talented kids applying.

Yes, we do. We really do.

There are a surprisingly high number of marginal admits at elite schools who slow down the education of the really smart students (at times).

Some of these marginal admits are there for what is deemed a good reason (e.g., recruited athlete), but others are just filling in the class. These folks are what I call “look alikes”, because they all look alike academically/intellectually — they study hard, jump through hoops skillfully, but are largely incapable of individual initiative or independent thought. A very small number of these folks transition into interesting thinkers while at school, but most don’t.

The really smart kids often go into the smart majors that have early hard courses that weed out the weaker students, and these weaker students find themselves in majors that cater to students who are not at the top of the intellectual ladder at their given school.

As a simple example, how many math departments at elite schools are complaining that they have too many really good students such that they can’t handle the load in upper division classes. The answer rounds to zero.

> Contorted rules and processes incentivize people to do stupid things. Like having 17 year olds compete in an essay contest to see who is the most disadvantaged

If you think this is how the vast majority of elite school admits get in, then you are woefully mistaken.

[analog31]

Indeed, I don't think there's a social or economic reason why higher education should be a scarce good. Likewise health care.

There was a recent article suggesting that Stanford should just replicate itself in multiple states. My own preferred route would be bottom-up: Start by bolstering the community and technical colleges, then the regional public colleges, and finally large state universities.

The "elite" private colleges have a dilemma, which is that they have to basically curate their student populations, because any simplistic admission filter will turn the college into a freak show and destroy its own brand. A college that consists of nothing but valedictorian concertmaster robotic-club-leaders, concentrated in three or four "hot" majors, would even have a hard time retaining faculty.

I propose letting them do exactly that -- a decade of no-holds-barred private college admissions -- and then figure out what we want to do about higher education.

[whimsicalism]

Princeton != Higher education writ large.

Exclusive educational institutions like Princeton are inherently a scarce good.

[analog31]

Indeed, and in fact, I'd like to see the press stop reporting on elite schools as if they represent "education." That attention distorts the rest of the education system. I also understand that something scarce is inherently scarce, but don't believe its scarcity is something that the public needs to support. Let 'em do whatever they want, and tax 'em up the wazoo.

[ryan93]

You are lying. You know most students at top schools aren't capable of doing serious scholarly work or engineering. There are more than enough spots for every good student. State schools like UT Austin have 20,000 students who can barely handle freshman level science and math.

[pradn]

Bio 101 at UT gets like 500 students per class, with 3-4 sections for the fall semester. If students fail then, is it because they are not capable of learning the material, or is it because they've been thrown into a totally new environment, where some extra guidance and close attention from TAs would help? There are a commensurately higher number of TAs for these classes, but the quality of teaching and energy they bring varies dramatically.

[ryan93]

I don’t think actually smart people would get weeded out at the bio 101 level. If you need hand holding you definitely shouldn’t be a surgeon or scientist.

[phobosanomaly]

It really depends on the curve. Weed-out classes are famous for having extremely aggressive curves. You can be perfectly smart, be intellectually curious, and have a great grip on the material, but due to the competitiveness wind up with grades too low for, say, medical school. You need those A's and A+'s in the early courses to pad your GPA so that you can take the hit from taking harder more intellectually-demanding courses later-on if you're in a demanding major.

A potentially brilliant scientist isn't necessarily the best at memorizing every single idiosyncratic, arcane detail that the professor uses to differentiate an A+ from a B.

I got some pretty darn good grades in undergrad, and whenever I explained to a research PI how the sausage was made they were pretty disgusted by it, because it involves zero intellectual curiosity. Just dissecting and memorizing massive amounts of minute details from the lecture that have zero relevance to the real world. I didn't get those grades because I was the smartest guy in the class (I wasn't by a long-shot), I got them because I was a machine that resided in the same cubicle on the second-floor of the science library 7 days/week. There are plenty of people with lower grades than I got who would be magnificent surgeons or scientists. But, that GPA is a huge gatekeeper to those professions.

For example, the infamous med school STEP 1 exam is going pass/fail next year, because students have stopped caring about learning about how to practice medicine in the real world, and have started grinding thousands of ANKI cards every day to memorize infinite details about weird autosomal recessive diseases that like 4 people on the planet have, and game the test. The curve is tight, and performance on the test has stopped reflecting ability to actually perform the jobs the test is gatekeeping for.

[ryan93]

Hadn't considered that. Thank you for the personal insight.

[kepler1]

> You are lying.

That's a weird phrase / way to respond to someone just stating an idea, isn't it?

[ggjjjttt]

In my experience at Princeton, this rings true. I was surprised by the amount of cheating taking place.

[amznthrowaway5]

Shouldn't come as a surprise, given the types of people admitted and admissions process being a game of lying and cheating.

[kiba]

If you judge people only on skills and talent, you will surely further stratify society.

Who has the most advantages to succeed in that kind of environment? The rich. Because they have the most resources and likely the most well raised and educated kids.