[WillPostForFood]

We need lottery based admissions. Let schools set a minimum test score, and anyone over that goes into lottery for admissions. Kill off essays, extra curriculars, club sports, summer programs, AP tests, Legacy admits, early applications, and let kids have some life again.

[blululu]

This feels fair. I would personally be totally in favor of nationalizing college admissions along such lines. Every school is given a fixed number of admits/waitlists and these are then allocated by lottery based upon such rudimentary qualifications. The federal government could easily force the issue by tying federal funds to a unified national admission scheme (They did this back in the 60's to eliminate men's colleges).

[ZeroGravitas]

And the cool second order effect of this, is that all the energy currently invested in this zero sum competition will be redirected into a plan B for kids that don't make the cut.

Which prompts all sorts of interesting ideas like, why don't we have more prestigious universities? Did we decide that there was only so much science that needed done? Or were we trying to put a protective moat round the children of the elites so they didn't need to compete? And then put all our energies into ensuring our kid scraped into the bottom rung of that protected elite and didn't end up on the scrap heap?

[dagw]

why don't we have more prestigious universities?

Depends what you mean by "prestigious universities". If you mean "one of the N best schools in the country" then per definition you cannot create more prestigious universities. If you mean universities capable of offering really high quality education to undergrads, then there are already very many 'unprestigious' universities that are every bit as good as the prestigious ones and in many cases probably a lot better.

I guess what is needed is some sort signal that, while this university doesn't have as many Nobel laureates as Stanford, it is every bit as good at teaching undergraduate physics. I wish there was a university ranking that only focused on the quality of the undergraduate teaching and education, but I have no idea how that would be done.

[WitCanStain]

>why don't we have more prestigious universities?

Legacy families need prestigious universities to be rare and exclusive so that them having gone there increases in value. They already know that their kids will get in so making top universities more exclusive only has benefits for them.

[MerManMaid]

Love where your head is at, but assuming we're talking about the united states, we literally just have enough money and resources to subsidize every kid who wants to attend college if we really wanted to.

There are so many measurable long-term benefits to higher education both for the individual as well as the state that it's truly insane (to me any at least) with how unaccessible we've let it become.

[anon291]

We do have many good schools but unlike most places we also have extremely great schools. So while it's pretty easy to fund a good education for everyone, there's always going to be competition for the best.

[MerManMaid]

>there's always going to be competition for the best.

Agreed but surely we could come up with a form of competition more fair than something which heavily favors the wealthy and/or familial alumni.

[jimmydddd]

From what I've read, the alternative they've come up with is favoring certain ethnic backgrounds over others. But the courts are currently not favoring that approach. So they may have to go back to looking at grades and test scores.

[Ekaros]

I recommend some type of testing. Even subject specific.

And for most desirable institutions just outright auction for certain amount of spots. Let the rich bid for spot and the money spend to subsidise others.

[anon291]

> "Let the rich bid for spot and the money spend to subsidise others."

this is called international students

[EvgeniyZh]

Just make tests hard enough so that you wouldn't need lottery

[UncleMeat]

At some point a test stops becoming a general aptitude test and starts becoming a "how good are you at taking this test" situation. You get specific prep courses designed just around that one specific test and strategies optimized for that specific test. You start selecting for "elite" rather than "smart."

A merit lottery also keeps everybody from having to waste shitloads of time studying for this one test.

[EvgeniyZh]

Any test checks how good are you at taking this test. I've not seen evidence that at some complexity level it stops correlating with success in university, have you?

[BeFlatXIII]

The lottery sortition above the minimum standard (which can still be set quite high) is the solution to preventing a competitive monoculture that a strict "top N scores admitted" policy would make.

[jjeaff]

any tests will always be gamed by those with the resources to game them. either ethically (through special tutors and private programs) or unethically (cheating).

[EvgeniyZh]

Any system can and will be cheated, that wasn't the point of neither OP's or mine proposals.

Standardized testing is a good predictor. In my country people are admitted based on standardized testing only (country wide subject exams and sat-like test) or results of university-adjacent "preparation courses" and it works fairly well. The affirmative action is realized directly as a bonus points to your scores based on the background, which reduces the effect of ethical gaming.

[watwut]

Paying tutors is not gaming the system. It is trying to learn effectively. I get that one wants to avoid creating a system where students are forced to spend too much time to learn purely for competition sake with no real practical need, but still.

The core issue is the pyramid shaped system where not being at one of these super places means that you are out of the competition for best work in general.

[saberience]

Having to pay for tutors to have a chance of getting into the best colleges biases the whole system in favour of the wealthy.

Do you want only rich kids going to college?

[dagw]

If you are genuinely smart you will do well enough on qualify for top schools just by studying at school and on your own and relying on your own ability. And even the best and most expensive tutors cannot do that much to improve your scores if you just don't have the aptitude and discipline.

The system now is far more geared towards sending only rich kids to college than any national testing and admissions system would be.

[watwut]

That is not how it works. People having tutors are genuinely smart, have discipline, do well and then get tutor to do even better.

[throwaway48476]

There's a diminishing return on the value invested in tutoring where innate ability plays a bigger part.

[watwut]

That argument has nothing to do with whether it is gaming the system. Just like intentionally buying a house on a good school district is not gaming the system.