

Why Selective Colleges - and Outstanding Students - Should Become Less Selective - tokenadult
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barry-schwartz/why-selective-colleges--a_b_177909.html

======
tokenadult
Why couldn't we follow a different path to reform from that proposed by the
Swarthmore psychology professor and have all applicants to some "top" group of
colleges submit a rank-ordered list of their preferred colleges to a central
matching organization, to which colleges would also submit a rank-ordered list
of applicants? That is already done for medical residency programs in the
United States after graduation from medical school,

<http://www.nrmp.org/>

and it is provable mathematically that the match algorithm offers the optimal
trade-off among the different preferences of applicants and programs.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_marriage_problem>

<http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~evs/intro/stable/>

I think bright high school students on their way to top colleges could figure
out their preferences well enough to deal with such a system, and the colleges
ought to be able to deal with it too.

~~~
rfurmani
It's an interesting idea, but you have to be careful about these mathematical
proofs of optimality.

First of all, it is very hard to rank the schools before seeing the offers,
visiting the campuses, doing more thorough research (which you may not have as
much time to do while preparing your applications). Second of all, there are
other factors involved. Where did your friends and boyfriend/girlfriend get in
to? This is one big problem of the medical placement system, especially for
those who are married by then.

~~~
tokenadult
_Where did your friends and boyfriend/girlfriend get in to?_

Yes, the mathematical proof of optimality only applies to one snapshot of
time. Having exactly one choice of college after a date certain is a feature
of any admission system, but there is considerable argument for that date
certain being as late as possible.

------
tokenadult
"So we are collectively engaged in a college admission 'arms race' that is
almost a complete social waste, for once a set of 'good enough students' or
'good enough schools' has been identified, it probably doesn't matter very
much which one you choose; or if it does matter, there is no way to know in
advance what the right choice is."

I'm not so sure I agree with the author's premise that there are few
meaningful distinctions among top colleges (the issue each applicant has to
look at). Nor am I sure that at any particular college, while the college
admission office is building a class, there are not meaningful distinctions
among applicants (as elements of the overall entering class that the admission
office attempts to assemble). What do you think?

~~~
Retric
I went to a local state school because I did not feel a large gap between Comp
Sci there vs say MIT. My sister is trying to get into a program at Cal Arts
(<http://www.calarts.edu/>) that accepts 30 people a year because it's by far
the best program in the nation. IMO, the caliber of a top tier school has
little to do with the quality of any single program. However, if you want to
compete in a highly competitive area then aim for the best.

PS: A friend of mine went to MIT and several years latter we ended up working
in the same building making the same amount of money.

~~~
kirse
_I went to a local state school_

As did I. I felt that I'd rather spend time working on my own projects instead
of staying up all night working on some professors' latest project. Turned out
well for me at least, I made far more my senior year in college than my
current income at my day job.

I think the more your intended profession relies on _doing_ to gain
experience, the less going to a top-tier college matters. On the other hand,
if it's through _research_ and access to the top knowledge resources, then a
top-tier school matters.

For most of us as engineers / hackers, we learn much more through doing &
building.

------
skalpelis
How, exactly, can a selective college like Stanford, Harvard, MIT, etc become
less selective? By increasing the campus size tenfold? Staffing it with more,
though less capable professors? As long as there is a size and quality limit,
there always will be exclusivity.

~~~
maurycy
Maybe being the best does not necessarily mean to be selective?

I think that Internet slowly begins to remove the constrains you mention.

~~~
unalone
I'm all for widening the world and all, but let me think out loud.

Harvard lets really brilliant people meet each other in a place that offers
exclusively brilliant people. (Brilliant by Harvard's standards, anyway: I'm
aware that that's not a perfect standard.) It gives them some world-class
teachers, and it gives them class sizes small enough that students can build
relationships with those teachers.

How do you lessen selectivity without also lessening the experience of being
in such an exclusive place?

------
nostrademons
There's a bit of a contradiction in the article. On one hand, they argue that
among a certain tier, all colleges are basically the same. On the other hand,
they argue that this "arms race" to get into the best college psychologically
harms kids because they pack their schedules with stuff they don't really want
to do in order to get in. But if all colleges within a tier are basically the
same, why don't kids just ignore them, do what they want, and let the cards
fall where they may?

I did basically that in high school - I blew off classes, picked activities
that _I_ wanted to do rather than ones that'd look good, refused to take any
SAT prep courses, and didn't even apply to college while I was in high school
(I worked a year and then applied). When it came to application time, I picked
half a dozen colleges that I wouldn't mind going to, with no clear favorites,
and got in at 3 others. I don't think my life has been all that different
because of it: in most people's minds, Amherst is as good as Brown which is as
good as Rice which is as good as Stanford. (Harvard and MIT people may
disagree, but then they end up working alongside us and realize that where you
went to school doesn't really matter...)

------
biohacker42
Social stratification is a game we humans love to play and have been playing
since forever.

Sure it might make practical and academic and all kinds of sense to be less
selective, but seeking exclusivity is as human as getting high, cheating,
fighting, etc.

------
bd
_Stanford could fill their entering class with kids who had perfect scores on
their SATs and still have plenty with perfect scores left over._

Just nitpicking - this cannot be true [1]. Stanford enrollments per year are
in the 2,000 range, while perfect SAT scores are just in the low hundreds. And
not all students with perfect scores apply to Stanford.

\------

[1] I know, you could construct some weird scenario where one year class would
collect people from many years, but let's keep it realistic.

------
Brushfire
Having just been admitted to a top-tier graduate school after attending a
state school for undergraduate (in-state tuition rocks), I'm tempted to agree
with the article. Especially for undergraduate work. For me, graduate school
will (ideally) be about networking & deep knowledge rather than 'figuring out
what I want to do' which is what is true for a majority of undergraduates.
Still, the best schools are really just about the best peers, thats it. And
that does end up making a difference for some people.

------
time_management
I think college admissions matter more to parents than they do to the
students. For the parents, it's a huge insult not to have their "pride and
joy" accepted to the Ivy League. The vast majority of level-headed 18- to
22-year-olds don't care that much about this issue. It's a rather pointless
obsession.

