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This ISN'T a social-justice article. Picking the top applicants backfires because people game it. For example, consider Students A and B who're mostly identic
by _Nat_ 6y ago
This ISN'T a social-justice article.
Picking the top applicants backfires because people game it.
For example, consider Students A and B who're mostly identical except Student A likes to binge on Wikipedia while Student B spends every night doing SAT practice problems. Colleges that select only the top applicants get the B's of the world, who optimize their observables, while the A's seem somewhat less competitive on paper.
If you change the rules -- like you start focusing on clubs, volunteering, or even just skipping the Top-1% -- the gamers'll adjust their strategies, out-performing the non-gamers who develop actual talents. The top colleges end up getting flooded by gamers who're focused on looking good.
The pragmatic solution proposed in this article is to randomly select "good enough" applicants. This allows colleges to take in the top-performing non-gamers who have a wealth of actual skills (rather than gaming hacks) while also reducing the incentive for gamers to waste their time gaming the system.
- DoreenMichele 6y agoFWIW, you've made me want to read the article (which may not happen, but thank you).
- ffggvv 6y agoright but if you’re looking for people who will succeed in college (or the corporate world) wouldn’t you be looking for people who can achieve based on specified rules and fun to within a system, instead of undisciplined people who can’t do that but may naturally be intellectually curious? the first makes a terrific employee, the second might not put in hard work for stuffthey don’t find interesting or may leave altogether
- _Nat_ 6y agoDepends on the job. If you've got a simple, mechanical job that a trained monkey could do if monkeys were more intelligent, then, definitely, you'd want folks who'll slavishly adhere to whatever task is assigned -- the folks who'll spend all night doing SAT prep problems would be perfect hires. But if you want to train innovators who'll actually advance their fields -- whether we're talking mathematicians, scientists, engineers, doctors, or business leaders -- then you'll want the folks who'll pursue such things on their own initiative along with the talents they've developed due to that intrinsic motivation. Elite non-innovators can have their place. In science/engineering/math, they won't be leaders, but they can still be effective researchers with strong publication records, reliably churning out decent-quality papers. In medicine, they can be great practicing doctors. In business, they'd be reliable middle-management types. Still, it'd be weird for a top institution to only have middle-management types.
- 908B64B197 6y agoPretty much every admission system I have seen can be gamed in some way. Standardized testing is probably the worst offender here, since while the absolute equalizer on paper (everyone gets the same test!) it really rewards over-fitting and learning how to perform well on one type of exam.