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Comment by dumbfoundded | Hacker News Reader

I think the Common App is awful. Many of my friends out of high school applied to a few colleges. I applied to 17. Why? The cost of a college app is ~$75. The Common App turns careful consideration of where you want to study into a monetary game. I was lucky to afford it. Most people can't.

As for TypeByte, I think it's okay. My girlfriend went through it, passed with flying colors and got many interviews. The problem is jobs like colleges differ vasty.

Perhaps a better solution for the problem is a meaningful certification. Then you can simply focus on the specifics of the role and company to see if it's a good fit. Determining qualification is a solved problem in many other fields.

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When I was referring to CommonApp, I didn’t mean to also include along it’s heavy fee per application.

Beyond the medical field and lawyers, what other fields do you believe that qualifications is a solved problem? Mind that a certification itself can also be cost prohibitive — that’s ok if it can be amortized over many apps though.

Almost all trades have certifications.

Everything from air conditioner repairmen to physical therapists.

So you are saying the current system is better, because rich students have better chances as they can afford more applications?

The current college system in the US is entirely flawed. College education should be free and slots given based on merit and not money. What you pointed out is that this bad system already starts at the cost for an application.

University education in Germany is basically free (~300€ per year) and application costs are printing 2-3 pages and sending them in or bringing them personally. And that's only for the final step, everything else is already online.

Some slight corrections/comments (source, German who went through our education system)

1. Depending on the university, you might not even have to print anything out, I applied to TUM purely digital IIRC 2. While I was studying they abolished the study fees. What you pay is student unions dues, which depending on which state include a public transportation ticket, access to additional medical consultations and career services and other stuff 3. We can also apply for federal study aid, depending on need. I worked and had parents who could support me, so I "only" got around 6000€ for all of my studies (plus an additional 3000 for studying abroad in Switzerland for a while) of which I'll have to repay 50% interest free, less if I can pay it off in a lump sum. 4. This is a very social-democratic German perspective, but I'd argue education is a right and should be given to everyone, limited only by the available resources. Conditional on limited resources split it between prioritising need (e.g., increasing social mobility) and prioritising ROI (in a rough sense, merit)

As an aside, I will be happily corrected if this is wrong, but I remember reading that in 2012 Germany graduated almost as many engineers (3 years bachelor plus master graduates, most of whom did a bachelor before) as the US (4 year bachelor with most people not going for the master of not as part of a PhD, if I understand correctly?). While I'm sure you can't exactly equate these numbers, with population numbers of 82e6 Vs 300e6 this seemed to me like the German system was doing something right - especially given German engineers seem(?) to be well qualified in the international comparison

> 1. Depending on the university, you might not even have to print anything out, I applied to TUM purely digital IIRC

I'm also a TUM graduate. At least a few years ago, you had to send in or hand in your signed final application papers (not even all documents) to the "Immatrukulationsamt". But so much of the process is purely online, that you might have forgotten about it.

Ah, true, at the very end you print out a form, sign and then mail it or hand it over. Thanks for jogging my memory

I certainly didn't say it was better.

"Entirely flawed" is also incorrect. At least according to this UK-based ranking: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankin...

The problem in the US is that too many people go to college to study things that cannot possibly afford to repay the cost of learning those skills. High school students are lied to by making them think college is the only path to success. Many 2-year trades exist (that you can apprentice - so earn while you learn) and pay much better than the opportunities available to 4-year students.

I do believe there should some cheaper public options but the biggest problem by far is too many people buy into the "you need college to succeed" myth.

In my reply I didn't get that the "Common App" is similar or even more expensive, but reduces the effort for each application. So, yes absolutely no help in the "this costs too much to begin with" scenario and I went a little overboard with my reply.

> "Entirely flawed" is also incorrect. At least according to this UK-based ranking:

The ratings are not about cost for education and accessibility, i.e. a fair system for the population. They are about elitism.

I can't speak for other countries, but German universities are also underrated in these university rankings. Not on purpose, but because in the German system a huge part of the world class research does not happen at the universities, but at external research facilities like the Frauenhofer or Max Planck institutes. Those are afaik not included in the research and citation scores of universities.

And to come back to entirely flawed: There is also a lot of bad research happening just to boost publications and citation counts, two metrics that heavily influence the university ranking and "scientist rankings". If the university optimizes for ranking positions rather than high quality research, I would also call that a flawed system.

I think what I'm trying to get at with the Common App is that it turns a time problem into a money one. If I had to write separate essays for every college app, I could've only applied to maybe 6 or 7. Instead, I could pay money to apply to more schools.

As for the quality of the American college system. I think it's hard to argue that many of the best universities are generally in the US. (I choose the UK ranking initially b/c it was the least friendly to American Universities). Many of these universities are also public and fairly low cost. My gauge on the problem of American universities is the bubble in demand. Too many people want to go to college for skills that aren't needed widely. This demand drives up cost to its currently crazy levels and creates long term debt issues.

As for the bad research to boost publication counts, I think basically every university does that. Maybe you'd like this source better: http://www.leidenranking.com/ranking/2018/list

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