This series has been amazing food for thought - thanks for that.
Here are some thoughts of my own:
- The idea of having a test with a specific threshold seems pretty solid (it's already being utilized in some European countries, afaik). The random allocation of spots post-threshold also has my vote. But why not broaden the number of spots so that all students who meet the threshold have a close-to-certain probability of getting admitted somewhere?
- I don't align with the idea that schools should commit to reserving spots for specific groups (like your proposal where extra spots are dedicated to low/middle income students). It seems like this sets up skewed incentives (solve for the equilibrium?) and the Supreme Court is likely to overturn this sort of policy.
- The fact that Ivy-plus schools rake in billions from the federal government annually (let's not even get started on their astronomical endowments), and yet a "phased-in 10 percent expansion of class" is seen as a hard-to-implement policy? That's probably all we need to know about the direction this is headed and how small the expected changes will be.
Expansion - check out Rice...where over the last decade or so they have added a number of new residential colleges (and modestly expanded the size of each college). I graduated in 1984 in a undergrad student body of about 2500. Enrollment is now at about 4250 and set for 2 or 3 more colleges.
The study and your policy suggestions are important contributions to the debate. but one thing that puzzles me about the study design is that you compare IVY-Plus only to flagship state universities, as though all the waitlisted applicants who don't get in Harvard end up at Ohio State or UVA. What about all of the disappointed Princeton waitlisters who go to Bowdoin or Swarthmore or dozens of other selective liberal arts colleges? It is easy for me to believe that Harvard adds more value than Ohio State. But I doubt that it adds more value than Williams. My own experience suggests that the actual classroom experience at selective liberal arts colleges is at least equal and may well be superior to the typical classroom experience in both the Ivies and state universities, and their graduates do very well. The study depends on the assumption that there is no difference between admitted waitlisters and disappointed waitlisters who go to state universities, and I question whether that has been proven.
This is a good and underappreciated point. I don’t have data, but my strong intuition and personal observation is that highly-qualified students who aim to attend an Ivy-plus school but don’t get in (a large cohort now) often attend other very selective private colleges and universities, not large public universities. Williams, Northwestern, CalTech, Vanderbilt, Johns Hopkins, Rice—there are some really well-known and well-regarded schools in that set. I’d have to see some solid data to conclude that graduating from one of those institutions results in a significant disadvantage.
1. Basing the bottom-line for lottery consideration on Grades and Test Scores will not build equity. There is a nationwide industry of college application consultants and firms—charging hundreds of dollars an hour that few middle class families can afford. They teach their "students" strategies for taking the tests, writing a winning essay, and planning virtue-signaling service learning activities (now an essential). They often start with kids in 9th grade. Private schools offer college counseling with many of the same features. This is the culture elite kids grow up in.
2. This essay equates the "success" predicted by academic achievement solely with future income. This is not the equivalent of lasting social value. Rather, it's a prediction of participation in financial services, corporate law, and other high-paying industries. One of the unspoken truths of private high schools is that very few of their graduates go into the service professions—teaching, family medicine, nursing, social work.....
3. The arguments assume that a lottery system based on grades and test scores will bring more middle and low-income kids to elite colleges. The problem is that with a rack-rate of anywhere between $50,000 and $85,000 per year, most of them will need financial aid, an immense burden that even schools with large endowments will find challenging. My alma mater, Vassar College, has one of the most economically diverse student bodies of any private college.... and I belive, needs-blind admissions. It's taken almost the entire annual endowment draw.
The real question is why do these schools cost 80k in the first place? And perhaps more important, why do 18-24 year-olds need to be sequestered in pastoral settings, cut off from the realities of larger cities during the most creative time of their lives? The days of Ox-Bridge are long passed. The walled garden is out of date. Higher education needs to becoming continuous, blending academics (including the liberal arts) with real-world experience and exposure. It should not cost a fortune.
I've been making an argument similar to this (minus the sophisticated statistical analysis) for several years now. Setting a high bar is the only way to be transparently fair, and a lottery is the only way to remove bias from the system. I served for several years as an alumni interview for my (Ivy) alma mater and was rather dismayed by what I could see of how absurdly competitive the system has become for students who were more than capable of doing well. While I was thrilled to see super impressive students get in, I was puzzled by some other decisions where remarkable students were passed over in favor of less remarkable ones.
This series has been amazing food for thought - thanks for that.
Here are some thoughts of my own:
- The idea of having a test with a specific threshold seems pretty solid (it's already being utilized in some European countries, afaik). The random allocation of spots post-threshold also has my vote. But why not broaden the number of spots so that all students who meet the threshold have a close-to-certain probability of getting admitted somewhere?
- I don't align with the idea that schools should commit to reserving spots for specific groups (like your proposal where extra spots are dedicated to low/middle income students). It seems like this sets up skewed incentives (solve for the equilibrium?) and the Supreme Court is likely to overturn this sort of policy.
- The fact that Ivy-plus schools rake in billions from the federal government annually (let's not even get started on their astronomical endowments), and yet a "phased-in 10 percent expansion of class" is seen as a hard-to-implement policy? That's probably all we need to know about the direction this is headed and how small the expected changes will be.
Expansion - check out Rice...where over the last decade or so they have added a number of new residential colleges (and modestly expanded the size of each college). I graduated in 1984 in a undergrad student body of about 2500. Enrollment is now at about 4250 and set for 2 or 3 more colleges.
The study and your policy suggestions are important contributions to the debate. but one thing that puzzles me about the study design is that you compare IVY-Plus only to flagship state universities, as though all the waitlisted applicants who don't get in Harvard end up at Ohio State or UVA. What about all of the disappointed Princeton waitlisters who go to Bowdoin or Swarthmore or dozens of other selective liberal arts colleges? It is easy for me to believe that Harvard adds more value than Ohio State. But I doubt that it adds more value than Williams. My own experience suggests that the actual classroom experience at selective liberal arts colleges is at least equal and may well be superior to the typical classroom experience in both the Ivies and state universities, and their graduates do very well. The study depends on the assumption that there is no difference between admitted waitlisters and disappointed waitlisters who go to state universities, and I question whether that has been proven.
This is a good and underappreciated point. I don’t have data, but my strong intuition and personal observation is that highly-qualified students who aim to attend an Ivy-plus school but don’t get in (a large cohort now) often attend other very selective private colleges and universities, not large public universities. Williams, Northwestern, CalTech, Vanderbilt, Johns Hopkins, Rice—there are some really well-known and well-regarded schools in that set. I’d have to see some solid data to conclude that graduating from one of those institutions results in a significant disadvantage.
Three points:
1. Basing the bottom-line for lottery consideration on Grades and Test Scores will not build equity. There is a nationwide industry of college application consultants and firms—charging hundreds of dollars an hour that few middle class families can afford. They teach their "students" strategies for taking the tests, writing a winning essay, and planning virtue-signaling service learning activities (now an essential). They often start with kids in 9th grade. Private schools offer college counseling with many of the same features. This is the culture elite kids grow up in.
2. This essay equates the "success" predicted by academic achievement solely with future income. This is not the equivalent of lasting social value. Rather, it's a prediction of participation in financial services, corporate law, and other high-paying industries. One of the unspoken truths of private high schools is that very few of their graduates go into the service professions—teaching, family medicine, nursing, social work.....
3. The arguments assume that a lottery system based on grades and test scores will bring more middle and low-income kids to elite colleges. The problem is that with a rack-rate of anywhere between $50,000 and $85,000 per year, most of them will need financial aid, an immense burden that even schools with large endowments will find challenging. My alma mater, Vassar College, has one of the most economically diverse student bodies of any private college.... and I belive, needs-blind admissions. It's taken almost the entire annual endowment draw.
The real question is why do these schools cost 80k in the first place? And perhaps more important, why do 18-24 year-olds need to be sequestered in pastoral settings, cut off from the realities of larger cities during the most creative time of their lives? The days of Ox-Bridge are long passed. The walled garden is out of date. Higher education needs to becoming continuous, blending academics (including the liberal arts) with real-world experience and exposure. It should not cost a fortune.
I've been making an argument similar to this (minus the sophisticated statistical analysis) for several years now. Setting a high bar is the only way to be transparently fair, and a lottery is the only way to remove bias from the system. I served for several years as an alumni interview for my (Ivy) alma mater and was rather dismayed by what I could see of how absurdly competitive the system has become for students who were more than capable of doing well. While I was thrilled to see super impressive students get in, I was puzzled by some other decisions where remarkable students were passed over in favor of less remarkable ones.