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Why should a school select students based on extra-curriculars? Why is "working at a job" not considered an extra-curricular? Why should a college even choose

Why should a school select students based on extra-curriculars? Why is "working at a job" not considered an extra-curricular? Why should a college even choose the highest academic performers? It's an educational institution, not a contest. At the end of the day, what is a college optimizing for, and why? Colleges could be selecting for students who the college can provide the most value to, or which students need that college the most, or which students show the most potential for post-college success by the college's metrics.

ryanwaggoner 9y ago
or which students show the most potential for post-college success by the college's metrics I think this is what they're doing, and it's really hard to do that for a 17 or 18 year old kid beyond grades, test scores, and extra-curriculars. What would you suggest?
longerthoughts 9y ago
>Why should a college even choose the highest academic performers? It's an educational institution, not a contest. It will inherently be a contest as long as admission rates are below 100% and schools' reputations are non-uniform. If you shake up admission criteria to be more holistic and less weighted on academic performance, applicants will refocus their attention and compete to satisfy the new set of criteria (at least those within their control). I definitely wouldn't argue that colleges are optimizing for greatest societal benefit, but it would take a lot to truly align their self-interest with a selection process that doesn't heavily consider academic performance (particularly for private universities).
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  Still don't understand. By expanding the pool of admissible students (including those with other attributes than academic), don't they increase their rates?
  - longerthoughts 9y ago
    This is a little beside my point, which was that competition will remain as long as schools remain selective ("selective" defined for the sake of this argument as accepting less than 100% of applicants). Even if there was a broad increase in admission rates, people would still compete to be part of the X% accepted to "top" schools. To address your point, though, I'll assume your use of "admissible" is synonymous with "admitted" students. An increase in rates would require that the number of admitted students increase relative to the size of the applicant pool. If the applicant pool increases with the number of admitted students there isn't necessarily an increase in the rate of admission depending on the relative increase in the size of the applicant pool. If we instead define "admissible" as meeting criteria for admission but not necessarily being admitted, I wouldn't be surprised to see a corresponding increase in admission standards to maintain existing admission rates. Interested to see if anybody has evidence to support or refute this based on historical trends in admission criteria (GPA, SAT, etc.) vs. admission rates.
TimPC 9y ago
The college system as a whole does best when it functions as a matching problem for curricular difficulty. Past academic performance is a noisy predictor of future academic performance. Students admitted in the sciences at schools too hard for them transfer into humanities and social sciences at disproportionately high rates. Breaking the system inhibits the ability to provide the most learning overall by ensuring everyone can be challenged appropriately.

ryanwaggoner 9y ago

or which students show the most potential for post-college success by the college's metrics I think this is what they're doing, and it's really hard to do that for a 17 or 18 year old kid beyond grades, test scores, and extra-curriculars. What would you suggest?

longerthoughts 9y ago

>Why should a college even choose the highest academic performers? It's an educational institution, not a contest. It will inherently be a contest as long as admission rates are below 100% and schools' reputations are non-uniform. If you shake up admission criteria to be more holistic and less weighted on academic performance, applicants will refocus their attention and compete to satisfy the new set of criteria (at least those within their control). I definitely wouldn't argue that colleges are optimizing for greatest societal benefit, but it would take a lot to truly align their self-interest with a selection process that doesn't heavily consider academic performance (particularly for private universities).

JoeAltmaier 9y ago
Still don't understand. By expanding the pool of admissible students (including those with other attributes than academic), don't they increase their rates?
- longerthoughts 9y ago
  This is a little beside my point, which was that competition will remain as long as schools remain selective ("selective" defined for the sake of this argument as accepting less than 100% of applicants). Even if there was a broad increase in admission rates, people would still compete to be part of the X% accepted to "top" schools. To address your point, though, I'll assume your use of "admissible" is synonymous with "admitted" students. An increase in rates would require that the number of admitted students increase relative to the size of the applicant pool. If the applicant pool increases with the number of admitted students there isn't necessarily an increase in the rate of admission depending on the relative increase in the size of the applicant pool. If we instead define "admissible" as meeting criteria for admission but not necessarily being admitted, I wouldn't be surprised to see a corresponding increase in admission standards to maintain existing admission rates. Interested to see if anybody has evidence to support or refute this based on historical trends in admission criteria (GPA, SAT, etc.) vs. admission rates.

TimPC 9y ago

The college system as a whole does best when it functions as a matching problem for curricular difficulty. Past academic performance is a noisy predictor of future academic performance. Students admitted in the sciences at schools too hard for them transfer into humanities and social sciences at disproportionately high rates. Breaking the system inhibits the ability to provide the most learning overall by ensuring everyone can be challenged appropriately.