> Originally, I thought of this idea as applied to college admissions. Harvard likes to talk about how it could assemble a few sets of qualified students each y

> Originally, I thought of this idea as applied to college admissions. Harvard likes to talk about how it could assemble a few sets of qualified students each year, and has to choose one. At that point, it's distinctly not obvious that the process they use to choose between similarly qualified candidates is any good; some actual randomness could have some benefits. The only problem is that there's no sign that elite universities have any intention of choosing students on merit, or through any system which is blind to factors other than merit (plus pure chance). Harvard's selection system seems to be very good at its actual intended purpose: it's more like casting Glee than making a strict assessment of merit. But for the rare university which both has a large oversupply of very good applicants and actually wishes to operate admissions on merit then yes, randomness is the answer. Another place that it would seem to make sense to apply randomness is in performance-related pay.