
The Best Ways to Fix College Admissions Are Probably Illegal - tomrod
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/04/college-admissions-antitrust/559088/?single_page=true
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carbocation
Anyone proposing that a residency match-type system is superior to the current
system has not gone through a match.

The Match is a pretty degrading experience, and I say this as someone who got
into my #1 choice. Imagine applying to a bunch of jobs and knowing that some
third party will decide which _one_ you will attend. You lose all sense of
agency. When used for jobs, match systems depress wages because the
competition is blunted and limited to the pre-offer period. There is still
weird recruitment that happens even though the institution cannot directly
offer you a slot. You still apply to a bunch of places because you're still
going to rank place #7 in case places #6 and higher don't want you.

For college applicants, there is no reason _a priori_ to think that a match
system would reduce the number of colleges they apply to.

Obviously, I don't like being a participant in match-based systems, but maybe
some people do.

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akhilcacharya
>Although selective schools—those that accept fewer than half of
applicants—enroll only about one-fifth of U.S. undergraduates, they account
for more than one-third of applications each year.

Given how wide their criterion for selective is, this line alone seems to
indicate to me that the constant media focus on ultra-elite schools is just a
sign of a bubble of elites.

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7dare
> With a national clearinghouse, students could upload their academic records
> and accomplishments during their high-school career and then in their senior
> year simply press a button to apply to colleges. The database would be open
> to admissions officers at all colleges, so they could see where else
> students are applying, bringing a level of openness to the process. Under a
> matching system, students and colleges would each submit rank-order lists of
> each other and be paired as closely as possible.

This is precisely what we have in France, ans it's run by the government (and
is thus prone to the same type of complaints as that Obamacare website).

There's a lot of contention about how well it does or doesn't work, though I'd
say it gets the job done. Your results are automatically entered by your high
school, and you get your results by "waves" as new spots clear up.

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ouid
What is the logistical problem that setting up a weird university cartel is
supposed to solve again? Students having to apply to more than one college?

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leetcrew
in the whole article, i read only a couple sentences that explicitly talk
about how any of these different approaches would actually benefit students,
and what little there was was quite vague.

on the other hand, they all seem to directly lower the burden faced by the
schools themselves. in particular, knowing what other schools a student has
applied to helps the college a lot (are we a reach? a safety? etc) but seems
like it could only hurt an individual student.

i vividly remember the stress of college applications, but i can't say it
seems unnecessarily brutal to me. it _is_ a very important process that will
affect the rest of your life, and there is an inherent level of stress in
these sorts of things. at the same time, there are a lot of tradeoffs that can
be made depending on your tolerance for risk. i applied early decision to a
school that was likely to accept me. i filled out one brief application and
received my acceptance letter in early december. if your college admissions
process is/was hell it is probably because of the expectations you (or your
parents) set for yourself.

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fphhotchips
I always found the US system for college admissions unnecessarily onerous on
both the student and the colleges. The Australian system is comparatively
simple - your results (generally from your final two years) are collated by
the state, some adjustments are made to the score based on criteria supplied
by the university (eg. unis might decide to target students with lower socio-
economic scores, or from regional areas), and then a ranking is produced. At
the same time, students have supplied an ordered list of their uni/course
preferences. The two lists are compared, and students are offered the highest
course they qualify for. If you don't get your first preference, you can
reject the offer and hope that someone else has done the same for a higher
preference.

For courses with an interview component or other requirements, those are
handled in parallel. Generally Undergraduate-entry Medicine is the primary
course with that sort of thing - the extra testing is carried out near the
start of the year and interviews once the school year ends.

I wouldn't necessarily say that it's the optimal solution, and nor is it
particularly _fun_ , but it works, and it means you're focused on school
rather than writing 10-million essays describing why you want to go to your
safety college.

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0xfaded
I'll add to this that each degree at each university has a pre-published entry
score. If you achieve this score, you are automatically accepted.

The score is based on the previous year's intake, so the universities must
predict demand for each degree in advance to meet their enrolment targets. In
practice this means they set the bar a little high and give the remaining
spots to students who didn't make the score on a case by case basis.

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jackvalentine
> I'll add to this that each degree at each university has a pre-published
> entry score. If you achieve this score, you are automatically accepted.

With the funding cap on commonwealth supported places announced in the MYEFO
this will eventually change back to a capped entry system.

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burntrelish1273
ex-Stanford affiliate here.

Regarding _grad school,_ one of the simplest ways to get in is to simply get
hired as a full-time employee (FTE) of the department and be favored by
one/more PI's. It's not strictly assured, but it helps because they'll at
least help you make your application better, if not show some unconscious,
preselection bias.

For undergrad, don't try too hard too look like an overachiever with a million
surface, common extra-circulars... focus on a select number socially-redeeming
clever hacks for low-income or third-world countries, and really hustle hard.
Start a profitable social venture startup also. Do something badass like
donate platelets every week, liver lobe or a kidney. A clever art installation
project would help too, especially with pictures.

\- These will kill it. Take every AP test you can to get 5's.

\- Study your a55 off for the ACT / SAT.

\- Do dorm life. It's the best part.

\- Join a greek society.

\- Arrange classes to graduate in the least time possible.

Also out-of-state tuition: charging based on ability to pay or whether a
foreign country is picking up the tab, rather than just out-of-state, would be
ideal. This way, lower- and middle-class out-of-state students aren't
penalized.

~~~
newen
> donate a kidney to get into college!

I cannot believe you are saying this seriously.

