Why do people think that a lottery is a good idea?
For a moment, let’s put aside concerns about whether the SHSAT is the best way to determine admission. Regardless of the method chosen, we should be able to determine if an applicant barely qualifies for admission, or is really great.
You don’t want the really great applicants being denied by lottery.
I would just note, @calmom, that a very similar line of argument is often used to justify the admission of legacies, etc., to elite colleges and, in fact, is the basis of the concept of “holistic” admissions.
Harvard used to do things just like Stuy, etc.: one test determined if you got in or not. In the 1920s, many Jews started to take the test, pass it and enroll at Harvard, to the discomfort of the administration and alumni, who, analogously to you, believed that there were plenty of Mayflower descendants who could do the work at Harvard and were being shut out by those Jewish grinds.
In order to deal with what he called the “knotty Hebrew question”, the president of Harvard, Abbott Lawrence Lowell, instituted the “Top Seventh Rule”, whereby admissions officers were required to contact students in the top seventh of their high school classes across the country so as to stimulate applications from areas with fewer Jews in them. Sound familiar? I think it should, if you listen to what DiBlasio is proposing
In 1922, with Jewish enrollment at 21.5%, Lowell attempted to institute a Jewish quota, on the grounds that this would reduce anti-Semitism in the student body [!]. A new policy to “reduce the number of Jews by talking about other qualifications than those of admission examination”, such as “character and fitness”, in Lowell’s words, was agreed to by the head of the admissions committee on the grounds that “such a discrimination would inevitably eliminate most of the Jewish element which is making trouble". This policy was implemented in 1926 (remaining in effect until the 1940s); it’s now being litigated whether its modern-day form discriminates against Asians.
As a matter of fact, I happen to agree that, short of racial or religious discrimination, which are illegal, elite colleges should be able to admit whomever they like, based on who they think will be of greatest benefit to the institution (whether they be geniuses, athletes, under-represented minorities, legacies, development cases, faculty brats and what have you). Understand, though, that you’re proposing to import a variant of this system to public high schools.
Personally, I think a single, objective test is advantageous to poor students and gives them a path upward. Also, every underrepresented minority who passes the test manifestly deserves to attend one of these schools, as much as anyone else. Plenty of kids with greater means who aren’t as motivated take the SHSAT and don’t get a bid. The fact that a kid’s parent went to Stuy makes no difference.
When you start to introduce other fuzzy factors to engineer an outcome that some portion of the population wants but which will inevitably disadvantage another group that feels itself as much or more deserving, you’re in the realm of politics. These schools are either supposed to determine and serve the academic elite by some objective measure, or they’re supposed to serve others, as decided by those in power.
Plenty of people on CC fulminate about Harvard admitting legacies and supposedly diluting academic standards to the benefit of the wealthy. I wonder how many of these same people also believe that the admissions standards at NYC’s elite high schools should be made more holistic in order for more URMs to be admitted.
Apparently, UCSD’s CSE department decided that it was a good idea to handle admissions to the major for non-direct-admit students by having a lottery for admission among those who earn a 3.3 GPA in the prerequisites, probably because going strictly by GPA ranking (as done previously) resulted in the threshold GPA being 4.0, probably incentivizing unsavory grade-grubbing and cutthroat competitive behavior in the prerequisite courses.
https://cse.ucsd.edu/undergraduate/cse-capped-major-status
Going to the lottery may also send a stronger message to those admitted as frosh but not directly to the CSE major that they should more strongly consider other schools where they are more assured of getting into the CS/CSE major. One would think that the previous threshold of 4.0 GPA would deter some, but apparently some students think that earning a 4.0 GPA in college is as easy as earning a 4.0 GPA in high school.
Whether or not that reasoning makes sense in the context of the NYC specialized high schools is another matter.
Although a 4.0 can be due to grade grubbing, someone getting a 4.0 is clearly a very different student than someone getting a 3.3.
It surprises me that administrators think this makes sense, but it is just another example of anti-intellectualism that is taking hold.
They may also be observing that higher grades in frosh level CSE courses are very dependent on past experience in computing. I.e. rather than measuring intellectual capability for success in future CSE courses, it may be measuring more what someone has seen before. (Perhaps analogous to test prep and prior school quality on standardized test scores.)
This does not necessarily mean that a lottery is the best or a good method. But there may be no good method if the intent is to measure intellectual capability without being confounded by prior knowledge and preparation.
“But there may be no good method if the intent is to measure intellectual capability without being confounded by prior knowledge and preparation.”
This is the objective of Oxbridge admissions interviews and they do an excellent job of it. Not going to work so well in the context of citywide high school admissions, but I’m surprised that a university wouldn’t use it for the more limited task of admission to higher level courses. Of course the UCSD lottery may instead be intended to discourage students from following that route in the first place.
I would not be surprised if this were at least part of the intent.
I agree that private institutions should be able to assemble a group of students as they see fit. The problems arise when the vast majority feel they are deserving, only to find out they are one of the 19 rejected for every acceptance at Harvard.
There were some limited majors at Harvard that required an interview and for mine also a portfolio. As an aside (I’m not recommending this for Stuy), I think Harvard was a healthier and happier place when there was a certain percentage of the population that was happy getting “gentleman C’s”.
When Vance Packard wrote The Status Seekers in the late 1950s, his description of the HYP social scenes was that those of inherited entitlement (probably around half of the students, admitted from high SES boarding schools without (at the time) needing particularly strong academic achievement, who were content with the “gentleman’s C” grades) looked down on the actual academic achievers, and there were social organizations within the schools and for alumni that were strongly based on inherited entitlement.
The title is like asking Diversity or Oboe players.
“those of inherited entitlement…looked down on the actual academic achievers”
Off topic but I find this interesting. In the UK it’s the effortlessly brilliant who look down on the students who have to work hard. The slang term at Cambridge was “NARG” (not a real gentleman) for those who were always in the library (most Americans fell into that category). The highest status was those who got top marks (not gentlemen’s Cs) without ever needing to go to a lecture. And it was just embarrassing to be in the “Nines Club” (those who got a third all three years which was the bottom 10-20% of the class).
Compare Boris Johnson/David Cameron vs Theresa May for a classic example of this social hierarchy, it’s not their inherited wealth but their intellectual brilliance that made them stand out.
@Twoin18 - one might argue that that “intellectual brilliance” has dug the UK into a deep hole recently (Cameron by recklessly calling the Brexit referendum and Johnson by campaigning for Leave with no plan for what would happen if it won, leaving plodding Theresa May to attempt to clean up the mess they made). These people think they can talk their way out of anything because the world will understand it should genuflect to them. And then there was the spectacle the other day of Old Etonian Jacob Rees-Mogg (aka the “haunted lamppost”) mocking some other MP in the House of Commons for being a Wykehamist - I felt ill.
@DeepBlue86 Yes there’s a good reason that “The Best and the Brightest” is not used as a compliment on either side of the Atlantic.
What happens to the effortlessly brilliant when they are faced with a conundrum their brilliance can’t immediately overcome? At least the grade grubbers develop perseverance and a work ethic.
Natural brilliance and perseverance are both necessary ingredients for new discoveries/breakthroughs/inventions, and fortunately they aren’t mutually exclusive. It’s much easier for a school to ascertain a person’s brilliance than his/her perseverance. Besides, a person’s work ethic can change.
@gwnorth They are usually effortlessly brilliant at BS too. Hence politicians (and consultants)…
This poll reminded me of this thread.
Just 15 percent of Generation Z and 32 percent of Millennials agreed with the statement that ‘merit and competition supersede all, even if that results in a workplace that creates minimal diversity.’
There are many reasons to love and feel proud of millennials. This is yet another. (Our children may be Boomers’ redemption.)
I think this article is a little misleading. Especially if you are not from NYC and not familiar with their high school admission process. 1st all the schools in the article
are public schools not charters. 2nd the New York City high School admission process is similar to the college admission process. You get a big book full of all the high schools in the city. Then you pick 8 goal that you can apply to. The number may have changed in the past few years of school.every school have a different application process. So if you don’t get into one of these specialized schools. You are not trapped in your neighborhood with no options. 3rd most high schools in NYC are spealize in some way. You have schools that specialize in culinary arts cosmetology, to accounting, IB programs in the finance and economics. You name it did the high school in NYC that specialize in it. It gives students a chance to sample different majors before they enter college. I don’t think they need to change the test there are only maybe five high schools a New York City that used to test. They’re about other 400 options that people can choose from. Those five schools are not the be-all-and-end-all to future success.