The Best Ways to Fix College Admissions Are Probably Illegal | Hacker News Reader

The Best Ways to Fix College Admissions Are Probably Illegal

theatlantic.com

29 pointstomrod12 comments

Anyone proposing that a residency match-type system is superior to the current system has not gone through a match.

The Match is a pretty degrading experience, and I say this as someone who got into my #1 choice. Imagine applying to a bunch of jobs and knowing that some third party will decide which one you will attend. You lose all sense of agency. When used for jobs, match systems depress wages because the competition is blunted and limited to the pre-offer period. There is still weird recruitment that happens even though the institution cannot directly offer you a slot. You still apply to a bunch of places because you're still going to rank place #7 in case places #6 and higher don't want you.

For college applicants, there is no reason a priori to think that a match system would reduce the number of colleges they apply to.

Obviously, I don't like being a participant in match-based systems, but maybe some people do.

>Although selective schools—those that accept fewer than half of applicants—enroll only about one-fifth of U.S. undergraduates, they account for more than one-third of applications each year.

Given how wide their criterion for selective is, this line alone seems to indicate to me that the constant media focus on ultra-elite schools is just a sign of a bubble of elites.

> With a national clearinghouse, students could upload their academic records and accomplishments during their high-school career and then in their senior year simply press a button to apply to colleges. The database would be open to admissions officers at all colleges, so they could see where else students are applying, bringing a level of openness to the process. Under a matching system, students and colleges would each submit rank-order lists of each other and be paired as closely as possible.

This is precisely what we have in France, ans it's run by the government (and is thus prone to the same type of complaints as that Obamacare website).

There's a lot of contention about how well it does or doesn't work, though I'd say it gets the job done. Your results are automatically entered by your high school, and you get your results by "waves" as new spots clear up.

What is the logistical problem that setting up a weird university cartel is supposed to solve again? Students having to apply to more than one college?

Reducing sub-optimal matchings between colleges and students, presumably. [0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_marriage_problem

in the whole article, i read only a couple sentences that explicitly talk about how any of these different approaches would actually benefit students, and what little there was was quite vague.

on the other hand, they all seem to directly lower the burden faced by the schools themselves. in particular, knowing what other schools a student has applied to helps the college a lot (are we a reach? a safety? etc) but seems like it could only hurt an individual student.

i vividly remember the stress of college applications, but i can't say it seems unnecessarily brutal to me. it is a very important process that will affect the rest of your life, and there is an inherent level of stress in these sorts of things. at the same time, there are a lot of tradeoffs that can be made depending on your tolerance for risk. i applied early decision to a school that was likely to accept me. i filled out one brief application and received my acceptance letter in early december. if your college admissions process is/was hell it is probably because of the expectations you (or your parents) set for yourself.

Letting more of the money allocated to financial aid go toward less privileged students, instead of being used to attract students from wealthier families who don't need it as much.

Also there was a suggestion that it could help lower tuition costs all-around, though that was less well argued than the first point.

I always found the US system for college admissions unnecessarily onerous on both the student and the colleges. The Australian system is comparatively simple - your results (generally from your final two years) are collated by the state, some adjustments are made to the score based on criteria supplied by the university (eg. unis might decide to target students with lower socio-economic scores, or from regional areas), and then a ranking is produced. At the same time, students have supplied an ordered list of their uni/course preferences. The two lists are compared, and students are offered the highest course they qualify for. If you don't get your first preference, you can reject the offer and hope that someone else has done the same for a higher preference.

For courses with an interview component or other requirements, those are handled in parallel. Generally Undergraduate-entry Medicine is the primary course with that sort of thing - the extra testing is carried out near the start of the year and interviews once the school year ends.

I wouldn't necessarily say that it's the optimal solution, and nor is it particularly fun, but it works, and it means you're focused on school rather than writing 10-million essays describing why you want to go to your safety college.

I'll add to this that each degree at each university has a pre-published entry score. If you achieve this score, you are automatically accepted.

The score is based on the previous year's intake, so the universities must predict demand for each degree in advance to meet their enrolment targets. In practice this means they set the bar a little high and give the remaining spots to students who didn't make the score on a case by case basis.

> I'll add to this that each degree at each university has a pre-published entry score. If you achieve this score, you are automatically accepted.

With the funding cap on commonwealth supported places announced in the MYEFO this will eventually change back to a capped entry system.

ex-Stanford affiliate here.

Regarding grad school, one of the simplest ways to get in is to simply get hired as a full-time employee (FTE) of the department and be favored by one/more PI's. It's not strictly assured, but it helps because they'll at least help you make your application better, if not show some unconscious, preselection bias.

For undergrad, don't try too hard too look like an overachiever with a million surface, common extra-circulars... focus on a select number socially-redeeming clever hacks for low-income or third-world countries, and really hustle hard. Start a profitable social venture startup also. Do something badass like donate platelets every week, liver lobe or a kidney. A clever art installation project would help too, especially with pictures.

- These will kill it. Take every AP test you can to get 5's.

- Study your a55 off for the ACT / SAT.

- Do dorm life. It's the best part.

- Join a greek society.

- Arrange classes to graduate in the least time possible.

Also out-of-state tuition: charging based on ability to pay or whether a foreign country is picking up the tab, rather than just out-of-state, would be ideal. This way, lower- and middle-class out-of-state students aren't penalized.

> donate a kidney to get into college!

I cannot believe you are saying this seriously.

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