
Throw Out the College Application System - danso
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/opinion/sunday/throw-out-the-college-application-system.html
======
lisper
This proposal assumes that the goal of top-tier colleges is to find the best
and the brightest and give them an exceptional education, which will enable
them to become even bester and brighterer. But that's wrong. The goal of top-
tier colleges is inculcate people into a particular social class. Ivy league
grads run the world, not because they're so much better and brighter than
everyone else, but because the people who run the world were indoctrinated to
believe that only ivy-league grads are capable of running the world, and so it
becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. How do I know? Because people still care
where you went to college even decades after you graduate. They stop caring
about your GPA, but they never stop caring about your alma mater. If it were
about achievement, then where you went to school should stop mattering after a
decade or two or three, just like your GPA, but it doesn't. Once a Harvard
man, always a Harvard man.

~~~
bane
For a fun NLP experiment, count the language usage of "When I was at <insert
school>" vs. "When I was at College".

You'll find that the schools people casually drop in with that phrase are by
and large tier-1 schools. While most people who went to school to learn just
use the latter phrase. The lesson is that when you go to Harvard of Princeton
or wherever, you didn't go to College, you went to some place that transcends
mere college, you went to someplace with an important name, and because of
that name, you too are important.

Hell: here it is off of the USNews list using google

    
    
       "When I was at Princeton" - 16.3 million
       "...Harvard" - 5.93m
       Yale - 2.58m
       Columbia - 3.53m
       Stanford - 2.44m
       University of Chicago - 6
       MIT - 18.5m
       Duke - 1.37m
       University of Pennsylvania - 1.81m (without "the" - 2 results, "Upenn" 201,000, "Penn" - 13.3m)
       California Institute of Technology - 1 ("CIT" - 6, "Caltech" 887,000)
       Dartmouth - 691,000
       Johns Hopkins - 6.14m
       Northwestern - 6.64m
       

For reference: "When I was at College" \- 9.46 million results "in college"
(exact) - 29.4m "at college" (exact) - 7.88m "at university" \- 31.4m "in
university" \- 7.050m

Here's the Tier-2

    
    
       Ashland - 860,000
       Barry - 843,000
       Benedictine - 95,300
       Bowie State - 2 (Just "Bowie" - 249k)
       Cardinal Stritch - 4
       Clark Atlanta - 6
       Cleveland State - 6
       East Carolina - 1.62m 
       East Tennessee State - 3 ("East Tennessee" - 3)
       Florida A&M - 3
       Florida Atlantic - 3
       Florida International - 3
       Georgia Southern - 877,000
       Georgia State - 1.65m
       Indiana State - 1.28m
       Indiana University of Pennsylvania - 2 (Indiana University - 5.07m)
       Jackson State - 466k
       Lamar University - 0 ("Lamar" - 441,000)
       
    
    

_edit, words, Penn and tier-2_

~~~
Blackthorn
University of Pennsylvania is often referred to as "penn", if you want to
rerun that search (though make sure to avoid "penn state", a different
school).

------
thrush
My thoughts on the admission system is that there are not incredible
incentives to improve it besides public outcry (which is powerful in it's own
way, but not enough so to warrant a change overnight, perhaps not even over
the course of 5-10 years). If a college overlooks a well-qualified student due
to poor assessment, the two possible outcomes are that the student will go to
another a school of similar caliber, or that they will end up going somewhere
down a few levels of caliber. Although unfortunate, neither of these are too
bad, and the hypothetical losses to the school and society are purely that,
hypothetical. I believe that introducing an alternative to college that can
offer a similar level of education without an application system (or with a
more lenient application system) will help drive the incentives to where they
need to be. For example, imagine Eileen is applying to Harvard and Harvard has
the top program for her interest. We've measured that Harvard is the top
program for her interest purely on the content that she would learn and the
projects that she would complete. Unfortunately, Eileen gets rejected from
Harvard, but now instead of going to UPenn, she signs up for online courses
over the next four years that cover the exact same content and projects.
Eileen goes on to invent the flexible solar-powered iPhone that reads minds
and solves world hunger. She becomes Time person of the year. She donates a
lot of money back to her online program. Future incredibly qualified
applicants will want to follow in Eileen's footsteps and may sign up for
online courses without considered Harvard at all.

~~~
pm90
The thing is that the person who took Eileen's place might be the progeny of a
donor with a lot of money; or she will have a similar intelligence level so
she will make the same financial contribution. So, apart from denying Eileen
the Harvard experience, the college has not lost anything much.

~~~
thrush
This is possible, but it's also possible that the replacement will not have
the same level of success. I assume that success distribution is more of a
power rule than equally distributed. I think this is a fairish assumption
because otherwise there would not be a tiered system for colleges in the first
place. In this case, Harvard does in fact lose much.

------
james1071
This is just another example of how absurd the US college system is from the
perspective of someone from another country.

The purpose of a university for undergraduates is not to select people of
character, budding entrepreneurs,sportsmen,people with rich parents or
anything else-it is to teach an academic subject to those best able to succeed
at it.

The way to select them is to let the academic staff who will be teaching them
decide. They will do that by means of exams and interview. How hard is that?

~~~
danso
A. I'm currently serving as faculty at a graduate program, so I ostensibly
have a say in the admissions process. This is my first year so I don't know
how much time it takes, but I imagine a lot, even though the program is small.
I don't know how in the world the academic staff can quickly filter from tens
of thousands of applicants without some kind of broad benchmarks.

B. You act as if there is some absolute benchmark for "best able to succeed at
[some subject]"...There is not. Sometimes the best engineers can come from
people who hadn't initially aspired to be engineers and thus lack whatever
credentials they could've built in their high school time. Sometimes character
can be the factor in success, sometimes not.

~~~
james1071
Of course there is no magic that can decide who will do best at a subject-no
one would ever suggest that there was and I don't see how that is relevant to
my point.

That was, that candidates should be admitted on the basis of academic merit
and that the 'right sort' of weaker candidates should not be given special
consideration.

------
bsilvereagle
While this idea has potential, I don't really see it taking off.

More and more colleges are being ran like businesses and the idea of spending
time and money developing and running assessment centers does not make sense
financially. Right now, candidates can be screened by a computer for test
scores, GPAs, and key words on resumes. Alumni volunteer to interview
potential students. The only paid staff are those reading essays (if they
aren't graded electronically) and those making the final acceptance decision.

Universities may band together to create these assessment centers to share
cost and upkeep, but even then costs are going to rise because the university
still has to keep the yes/no admissions gatekeepers on staff.

Large universities seem to be doing fine with alumni donations and I'm not
sure this method suggests enough of an increase in donations to make it a
worthwhile investment for universities.

~~~
jordanpg
This is the crux of the matter. Stated differently, why would universities
want to shake up their proven business model? For vaguely defined virtues like
creativity, wisdom, and well-roundedness?

They are interested in the bottom line, first and foremost, and in any case
are being run by executives pulled from the same executive pool that other
large corporations are drawing from.

The author needs to first carefully define the problem without reference to
Steve Jobs or academia golden-age idealism, and then posit a roadmap away from
the current business model.

~~~
krakensden
> This is the crux of the matter. Stated differently, why would universities
> want to shake up their proven business model? For vaguely defined virtues
> like creativity, wisdom, and well-roundedness?

Tier-2 private colleges are having a tough-ish time right now, it could be a
way to differentiate and attract ambitious students- "after you've thrown your
application into the goofy lottery system, why not apply here, where we take
you seriously? As you can tell with this significantly less goofy admissions
process!"

~~~
Balgair
Bingo. Word is out that college is a chance game for the 'right' school and
even when you get in, it's rigged. You simply cannot compete with China,
India, or Malaysia for spots at Stanford or UCLA. Those kids and parents can
just plain out work you. My wife went to UCLA for grad school. Her students
could speak English better than her, and would just out wait the professors
for points on tests. Every single little thing was an argument and you'd just
tire out and give it to them eventually. The cheating was a real concern as
well, as the other cultures didn't really have a sense of it being 'wrong',
that it was just another arbitrary rule you had to jump through. You get
caught? Then you didn't cheat well enough. Also, all those kids are then
either ending up back in Asia or in a cheap H1B visa spot you can't afford a
mortgage or kids on.

So, somewhat smart kids from Iowa will ask themselves: Why bother? I can't
compete to get in, I can't compete when I am actually in there, and I can't
compete when I get out. Forget this game, I'm taking my tiddly-winks and going
home.

And that is where the tier-2 schools really shine. Vassar, Colorado School of
Mines, the Claremonts, etc really can take those kids that aren't literally-
cookie-cutter-perfect-snoflakes-drill-and-kill and make them really shine.
Yeah, they won't be the CEO of Hundai or GE, but they will make a damn good
Lt. Major, or a VP at 7-11, or a hell of a McDonald's franchise owner, or the
best darn member of a school board that is always re-elected, or a real good
child abuse prosecutor. You won't make billions, but you will make 3-4
million.

There really is a need here for B- students that deserve a good living.
Getting rid of the darn SAT is a great way to attract them.

~~~
krakensden
Yellow Panic much?

~~~
Balgair
Seems like it huh? But it's not racism, it's population. Asia just plain has
more people, that they happen to have a historical association with being seen
as 'lesser' is the fault of the US here. Those people in Asia are just like
the people in the US. Geniuses and idiots occur with the same probability here
as there. But there are just more people there than here, so you see more of
them at the top universities.

------
khenson99
I go to Carnegie Mellon and I actually have a friend who works in the
admissions office. She's told me that, being a really strong tech school, CMU
often gets applications from people who are academically incredible, but may
not contribute to campus life, extracurricular organizations, etc. This has
led admissions to try to look harder at candidates who might not have gotten
an 800 on their SAT math scores, but maybe a 760 with some strong non-academic
resume items. Campus life at CMU is definitely lacking compared to other
comparable universities, so I think a system like this might be really useful
to a school like CMU which is trying to better understand the creative skills
and emotional intelligence of potential students.

~~~
james1071
That sounds like code for admitting more of 'the right sort of people'.

~~~
GabrielF00
A lot of the tools that admissions offices use (essays, letters of
recommendations) emerged because Harvard, Yale, and Princeton wanted to keep
out (or limit the numbers of) the "wrong sort" of people, which, at the time,
were Jews, homosexuals, and other such undesirables. Yale even went so far as
to have its alumni interviewers comment on the bodies of male applicants.
College administrators talked quite openly about the idea that having too many
Jews would result in an inferior or degraded college culture.

My source here is Jerome Karabel's book called, naturally, The Chosen.

------
A_COMPUTER
I would like to see a lot more scientific corroboration of the validity of
emotional intelligence before it is used as part of university admissions
process. Likewise with the one study the author cites that claims to quantify
"wisdom." This all sounds like a cultural bias minefield.

~~~
WildUtah
"cultural bias minefield"

Most of the techniques discussed in the article's assessments are aimed at
reducing the number of Asian-Americans and nerdy introverts. The promoters
always have a load of code words, but the college leadership and fundraisers
know what they're doing.

Since the equal opportunity lawsuits were ended -- at request of elite college
insiders -- by Bush 41 in the 1990s, the rates of Asian admissions in elite
colleges went down and hit a ceiling at 15%. The University of California is
looking constantly for ways to duplicate the success of ethnic cleansing at
elite private schools.

~~~
GabrielF00
The use of the term "ethnic cleansing", which refers to systematic attempts to
expel and, in many cases, murder people based on their ethnicity, is not
appropriate in this context. Your use of the term makes your post, which
otherwise raises important and historically-relevant points, lose considerable
credibility.

~~~
james1071
This is an argument against the style, but not the substance of what the
person has said.

------
moeamaya
I'm thrilled that MIT last year added maker portfolios to their undergrad
applications. I chatted with a couple freshman who said they spent less time
prepping for the SAT and got to use that time to work on their side projects
instead. It's still early but hopefully other universities consider different
metrics by which to define academic capability.

~~~
hga
They've been there implicitly for a long time, I've been told MIT has looks
for evidence an applicant can do projects. A couple I included in my 1979
application almost certainly helped push me over the top.

------
droithomme
> Those with less than perfect grades might go on to dream up blockbuster
> films like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg or become entrepreneurs like
> Steve Jobs, Barbara Corcoran and Richard Branson.

Alternatively, one might observe that modern colleges are for the mediocre,
noting that college had little to offer the cited personalities and would
likely have at best delayed their path, or more likely, prevent them from
achieving what they did by socializing them into conformity and obedience of
authority and convention.

We may certainly choose to daydream that "If only Steve Jobs and George Lucas
had completed _more_ college than they did, maybe they could have _done_
something even more amazing", as if college has this effect on people. (Lucas
has two degrees, so it's unclear what the article's author is really meaning
to say about him, apparently that the author thinks he should have gone beyond
a Bachelors.)

~~~
sliverstorm
It really would have to depend on your field, wouldn't it? There are no George
Lucases or Steve Jobses of theoretical physics.

~~~
xiaoma
I can think of one historical figure who fit the bill. Michael Faraday, who
established the basis for the concept of an EM field, had very little formal
education. For such a person to rise to prominence in physics was as
unthinkable in his day is it is now.

He was apprenticed to a local bookbinder and bookseller at age 14 and became a
voracious reader as a teenager. He later wrote that one of the books he read
during that time changed his life— _Improvement of the Mind_ , by Isaac Watts.
He rigorously applied the personal development principles within and began
studying science on his own from the book shop.

He started attending public lectures of a prominent chemist, taking copious
notes on lectures and sharing them with others. He gave the chemist he'd been
following a 300 page book based on the lecture notes and the chemist later
hired him as a secretary! He had to endure a multitude of slights in the
company of other scientists due to having humble beginnings while they were
almost universally gentlemen, but it was his ticket in. Once he was working as
a prominent scientist's secretary, he had access to the scientists'
professional circles, if not social circles. He relentlessly continued his
studies and got so good that people could no longer ignore him. Within a
couple of decades, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Oxford and he
eventually became the most prominent physicist in the world.

There are probably similar stories of slightly less prominent physicists in
this century, I just haven't heard of them yet.

~~~
sliverstorm
An inspiring story, although I feel like it supports my point. My parent was
basically stipulating that college is a waste of time for the gifted, but from
the sound of Faraday's story he spent a lot of time on a sort of a "college
track" of learning & lectures, even though he wasn't enrolled.

It's a great story of tenacity, but it reads more like "determined underdog
gets a foot in the door and proves his worth the hard way" than "gifted
magnate skips apprenticeship, becomes master"

Thanks for sharing it though :)

------
infra178
> For example, imagine that a college wants to focus less on book smarts and
> more on wisdom and practical intelligence.

Why?

~~~
paulhauggis
It's called a vocational/trade school.

------
tzs
Here are some examples, from small to large, of approximately how many
openings several well known colleges have for first year students each year,
and how many applicants they get. First column is number of openings. Second
column is approximate number of applicants:

    
    
        200  1200 Caltech
       1100  9200 MIT
       1300 13000 Yale
       1700 18900 Harvard
       1700 17000 Stanford
       4200 18000 UC Berkeley
       7500 14700 UT Austin
    

Even the smallest in that list dwarfs the operations given in the article as
examples of successful use of assessment centers. I wonder if anyone has the
resources to do that kind of in-depth assessment of, say, Harvard applicants?

~~~
xvedejas
Caltech gets over 5000 applicants each year* for nominally 235 openings. Where
are your numbers coming from?

* [http://collegeadmissions100.com/caltech-admission-stats/](http://collegeadmissions100.com/caltech-admission-stats/)

~~~
tzs
The first column is rounded. My data source (Forbes [1]) had 231 for Caltech
class size, which I rounded to 200. It's also a few years old.

I simply botched the second column. The second column should be relabeled "A
Number Smaller Than The Number Of Applicants, Probably By A Factor of 1.2 to
4". :-)

It was calculated from the class size and the acceptance rate. I forgot that I
needed to also take a look at the percentage of the admitted who enrolled,
since many people are admitted to multiple schools so not all admitted to a
given school enroll.

[1]
[http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/94/opinions_college08_Ameri...](http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/94/opinions_college08_Americas-
Best-Colleges_ClassSize.html)

------
analog31
This is an opportunity for an experiment: Upon implementing "assessment
centers," how many years will it take for affluent families to figure out how
to hack them?

------
mynameishere
Where assessment is possible, they already do it. The music department and art
department require your audition or portfolio. Most other programs assume
students are starting from zero (or near zero) and so assessments aren't
possible. Any other systems are going to be a way for colleges to choose
politically rather than academically. ("Street smarts?" Do you get bonus
points for time in the state pen?)

------
kevinalexbrown
I'd be curious to know how much this might exacerbate socioeconomic gaps,
given implicit prejudices. The SAT might have cultural biases, but imagine a
test where the entire point is to see how well you line up with them!

~~~
A_COMPUTER
>The SAT might have cultural biases

I believe this is overstated in current versions of the test. I have seen how
cultural bias is mitigated on these and other tests, a battery of stats are
run on the raw item scoring and if a question is found to disproportionally
punish a particular group captured in the demographics section, the question
is thrown out of scoring even if the reason isn't clear on review.

------
sjtrny
> Legos

Does the NYTimes not employ sub editors anymore?

------
metaphorm
just throw out the entire college system. the whole thing is broken.

~~~
GuiA
Yeah man. Let's throw out all of society as well, start anew. Everything's
broken.

