<p>I actually interviewed Prof. Schwartz for an article and he gave a fascinating TED Talk on the topic. He was theorizing that perhaps there could be weighted lotteries. He readily acknowledges that logistics aren’t there yet. The problem is nobody will even begin to agree with the basic premise that admissions is in fact very luck-based. </p>
<p>Admissions doesn’t have to be luck-based to justify Schwartz’s idea. He acknowledges that Admissions Departments work terribly hard to choose the very best class they can from the information they have available. The problem is, they really have no proof that their careful judgments are better than throwing darts or picking names out of a hat.</p>
<p>Many years ago – when Harvard got fewer applications than the University of Chicago gets today – a Yale admissions officer said, “We have a lot of confidence that we know how to identify the 5,000 super-qualified candidates in our pool. The problem is, we can only accept about a third of them, and we really have no confidence in our ability to draw meaningful distinctions among that group. But we don’t have any choice, so we do it anyway.” That doesn’t describe a lottery; it describes a process that doesn’t likely produce a better outcome than a lottery would.</p>
<p>What Schwartz wants is for high school students to stop trying to conform to what they think admissions officers want in every respect. And also for them to stop feeling so inadequate when they are rejected (or smug when they are accepted). All perfectly good goals.</p>
<p>This is extremely interesting. I agree with the sentiments underlying the proposal, but the logistical issues would be hard to overcome. As someone else mentioned, the number of applications at the most elite instituitions would likely skyrocket, thus defeating part of the purpose. </p>
<p>This may not be completely unprecedented. Someone recently told me that in the years right after world war II, vets who wanted to go to college were essentially assigned to variously colleges randomly, through a lottery system. This person said that her parent was able to attend Yale as a result of this random assignment process. I don’t know if this is actually true or not. Has anyone else ever heard that? If that really was the case it would be interesting to see if anyone has studied the results of this social experiment.</p>
<p>I think it is possible that adopting the lottery concept for at least part of the class might result in a more interesting class overall. In the colleges that change lives books ( which i am not entirely sold on), one of the big points in favor of the less selective schools that is cited in the book is the range of personality types and ability levels that result from a more open admissions policy. The author argues that this contributes to a richer experience. I’m not sure I agree with this completely, but I do believe that an element of randomness could result in a more interesting mix of people than the attempt to engineer an “interesting and diverse class” could achieve.</p>
<p>Thanks for those links, swattiechick. I don’t always agree with everything Schwartz argues, but he always makes me think. And what he says about the role of luck is so true. Too many people mistake luck for merit.</p>
<p>I really don’t think the admissions process at highly selective schools is as random as many people think. Among my friends, their were really no surprises among those who got into the ivies and similar schools and those who got denied. On this site, taking a look at the Decisions results thread, those accepted at ivies and peer schools are usually at the top of their class with top SAT scores and at least decent ECs. With the exception of hooked applicants, I think that there are really few outliers (academically stats speaking) that get into top schools.</p>
<p>^^^
I think the issue is not that people without the objective qualifications are getting in, but that many people with top objective qualifcations are not getting in. And you don’t have to look at decisions threads to know that. Even though there were some real head scratchers the last time I looked at some of those threads. </p>
<p>Which is not to say you won’t get into some great school with great stats. (Added to head off any potential hailstorm).</p>
<p>And one other edit - I did just notice that if you look at the 37 accepted students here with 36 ACTs, only 8 decided to enroll. Which indicates to me that many accepted applicants either couldn’t make it happen financially, or decided to attend a place they liked better than Briown.</p>
<p>One premise of Schwartz’s proposal is that current admissions aren’t random, or at least aren’t understood by candidates to be random. That’s why students feel such a strong incentive to mold themselves to try to look exactly like the other people who have gotten in to Harvard. And, certainly, if you look at the candidates accepted, they all (or mostly all) look exactly like the sort of person who SHOULD be accepted. If you look at the accepted group vs. the not-accepted group as a whole, there is a clear difference. However, if you look at the accepted group vs. the waitlisted group, the differences won’t be anywhere near as clear – or may not be apparent at all. And to the extent that you CAN tell the difference between those accepted and those waitlisted, there’s no proof that the criteria that make the difference correlate with any measures of later success, in college or elsewhere. So they are taking great care in selecting a class that will be no better than the class a monkey could have selected from the same pool. And even with all that care, there is still a random element, because the kids look so much alike, and some of them have to be rejected.</p>
That would be an interesting experiment - give the monkey photos of each suitable applicant and let him choose his favorites for the class of 2017 :).</p>
<p>If a kid is bright enough to be applying to the very top schools, then that child is also bright enough to understand the statistical odds of getting into those schools. I’m not sure why they would need more than that information to rationalize the admission outcome–I think they already understand how much chance plays into it and certainly the kids who visit CC seem to get it. My last kid starts the college process this fall…he has the stats to get into the best schools, has his heart set on one in particular, but realizes that he does not have a hook to tip the scales in his favor. On the other hand, from our experience with his siblings, we know that the schools a little further away from the top will offer merit aid and honors programs to a student like him, and that would help to make up for not getting into his top choice. Finally, although his sibs got into their top schools, we have seen enough friends (even those who only got into their last choice school) fall in love with their school and enjoy all four years…that is the message we reinforce to our son in preparation for the college application process.</p>
<p>If only there were a clear correlation between knowing something objectively and not taking a decision personally! </p>
<p>So many variables come into play about why someone is or isn’t accepted to a school when the grades and scores are there, but it seems like Schwartz is aware of kids tailoring their applications (and possibly their academic and EC choices in HS) to make them more “marketable” to Swarthmore’s AdCom. This really isn’t news. </p>
<p>It’s hard to be dispassionate about something that requires so much time and effort and can affect one’s future in so many ways, but it’s certainly the way to go. </p>
<p>Of course, if a kid <em>is</em> fairly dispassionate about the schools he’s applying to, and will happily “settle” with the one that makes him the best offer, does that lack of feigned enthusiasm for a school hurt his chances at admission? How often do we hear about someone being accepted because of the student’s “demonstrated interest”? </p>