"… Swarthmore’s Schwartz contends that universities ‘are not up to the task of making distinctions between essentially equivalent’ undergraduate candidates.
And he suggests the entire cottage industry of higher education should revert to ‘an explicit lottery system’ that puts everyone on notice—students and institutions alike—that they are playing a game of chance, and must live with the consequences: like life itself.
Lottery admissions ‘would relieve the pressure on high-achieving students to be even higher-achieving,’ Schwartz argues, and ‘free students up to do the things they were really passionate about.’ He says a lottery might also ‘increase the robustness of college student populations to a changing future, by increasing the variation among admitted students.’" …
Most colleges are not super selective ones which are overflowing with top-end applicants who appear to be similarly high achieving. The non super selective ones which make up the vast majority of colleges can still differentiate between applicants using academic criteria.
The super selective ones do have methods in their admissions processes and criteria that make them non-lotteries, although the opaqueness means that they appear to be lotteries to everyone on the outside of the admissions office.
No process that uses any subjectively graded aspects like essays, extracurriculars, or recommendations is purely objective. Beyond the college admission office, high school grades and the essay portions of standardized tests involve some subjective grading.
@happy1, when we visited Brown, the director of admissions basically said that was the case. Her words…paraphrased…“Last year 29,000 of the 35,000 applications we received were FULLLY qualified to matriculate at Brown. We have 2000 spots.”
However, Brown did not use an actual lottery, since it had the luxury of building a class of students that it wanted to meet various institutional goals. One such goal is to make sure that it fits within the financial aid budget.
@eyemgh I agree with and have heard that comment before. I fully understand that there are way more extremely well qualified applicants than any of the top schools can accept. I do, however, feel (I have a good friend who does admissions for an Ivy school) that admissions officers believe that they work very hard to come up with the best possible class from the many well qualified applicants – they feel their work is important and I am sure that if you ask any admissions officer he/she would say that by going through the process they will come up with a better college class (including but not limited to finding people who meet specific institutional needs, people with certain talents/skills, people who are well-rounded, diversity candidates etc.) than if the class was filled by lottery.
Who said admissions is objective or that schools want to be objective? State schools give preference to residents. Some schools give preference to legacies, to children of employees, to rock stars. No matter what system a school uses, if someone else is in and you are out, it is an unfair system.
And even objective criteria are unfair in a way. Obviously, grading varies a lot by school so that isn’t completely fair. And richer kids can afford more test prep, so tests aren’t completely fair either.
There is no ‘more fair process’ for one group that wouldn’t affect another group who would say the process is not fair for them. Some group will always say I’m screwed more. And for their specific circumstances, perhaps justifiably so. Which means ALL groups feel screwed the most/more than another. IMO there is no fair process. Period. The end.
Too many great students for too few selective school seats will and is resulting in more schools becoming selective schools. Look at USC from 15 yrs ago compared to USC today. Same for the UCs or Northeastern etc, etc. The applicant population just needs time to adjust its perception. If you think the Ivies will go to a lottery you’re deluded.
Colleges are businesses. They don’t have to be fair. They have to follow their mission statement and choose the students who meet their needs. Unless they’re a public school funded by our tax dollars, it’s not our job to tell them what those needs are or how to meet them. Families who think a particular college will treat them unfairly should apply to one of the ~3,000 other colleges in the US. There should be a good fit somewhere.
A lottery seems a lot more unfair than the current process. Everyone always says that all applicants are the same, but are they really? Colleges are fully within their right to pick kids with certain talents or attributes to meet their goals and we knew what we where getting into when we applied.