> How?
The capacity for intelligence is outside of your control for example genetic disorders are not chosen by the individual. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_syndrome
Further, when it comes to intelligence and Nature vs Nurture it’s really both. People 15,000 years ago people had nearly identical genetics, but their society lacked the knowledge to pass a SAT level math test.
Now, making the best of your social and genetic background is up to everyone. But, assuming everything is balanced is at best willful ignorance.
You would still score well, and the fact that you have extra work will still hold in good stead.
Let me turn this question that puts your self interest first.
You’ve got two people who you can hire for your team.
I turns out one guy got a lower sat score than the other.
The lower scorer is someone from the projects where people don’t go to college. He still managed it, and crunched his way through everything to get to community college.
The other chap has good parents who are highly educated and comes from a stable household.
Without a doubt, the first individual has proven a tenacity required to overcome a world of adversity.
Frankly - this is a handicap we already give people if we are made aware of their context.
The same reason people respect first responders, or people who’ve made it out of poverty are respected.
Because it IS harder, and far more fail to get out in the current environment, than those who do.
This will end up being more of a “how effective were you with the opportunities you had.” Measure than any other - and that’s provided it takes off in the first place.
Why should we be shoving people who aren't capable of being the very best students into this environment? Why give them the expectation that this is what they must do to be successful? What must everyone learn from a university (including those in the Ivy League and their peers) that we expect them to all need to go, as a fundamental right, regardless of the fact that they will be displacing students who are quantifiably better-fit for this place?
Who will be the first responders if we make everyone get a four-year degree before they can start their lives?
a hypothetical person who was born an autistic savant who is a musical genius. They sold out concert halls at age 9-10, playing the hardest classical music ever written. To what degree did they “earn” their skills and their genius? At a certain point you must agree that people are born with brains that are wired better, and they had no control over that. Effort should be rewarded, but luck should not. Determining how much of someone’s success was luck vs hard work is not at all easy to determine.
Through hard work and discipline, you did the best with the hardware you were given. But don’t think for a second that you wired your own brain.
Edit: and just to clarify, I think some fuzzy new metric on a standardized test will probably never summarize whether someone “earned” their score or lucked into it. My comment here is mostly a reminder to be humble.
Not "outstanding ability, after considering factors X, Y, and Z", but simply "outstanding ability".
It's true that I value demonstrated objective competence rather than subjective predicted future competence.
Presumably you want them to go to that school so they can produce the best music possible with their abilities, for the benefit of society. The other option I see is that you might want them to go to that school because they have "earned it", but this is silly, especially considering a case where they haven't done anything, and are just naturally talented!
You now have two problems- first, one school might be excellent at training good musicians but not so great at training savants. Second...
Suppose you have one spot in a magical "savant school", which is able to develop somebody's skills better than anywhere else in the world. You'd want to assign the student who would benefit most to this spot- the one who has greatest potential.
This is NOT the student who currently writes the best music- this is the one who will write the best music after attending the school.
You don't care about ability now- you care about ability later. Predicting the latter from the former alone has an obvious flaw- training and practice improve ability.
Because of this, it's a good idea to consider measures of how much training somebody has had, in addition to their current ability, for admissions decisions.
Unfortunately, quantifying that is hard- so other metrics are used as proxies. In considering admission to an Olympic swimmer training program, for example, perhaps one might consider how early somebody learned to swim, or how often they visited a swimming pool.
No?
Some music savants want to attend a music school that the composer or musician they most admire attended, others the one that is closest to home.
I don't understand why one would want a talented student to get preferential admission to a school because, for example, he liked the design of the campus. I only get the argument that a talented student should get admitted to a school that'll best develop those talents. The link between "you're talented" and "...so you should get to go to any school you want!" is one I don't get.
Why doesn't that lead to absurdities like a school which specifically excels at teaching "low-talent" students, churning out competent (if unexceptional) composers, still admitting talented students preferentially?
personally, I'm no savant, but as a child I really didn't have to work hard at anything in school. I was pushed up a grade, and was still at the top of that class, and bored, for years. i put in basically no effort in to any schooling for years, and was still, generally, way ahead of many other students who, looking back now, were struggling (this was in the day when students could be 'held back' to repeat a grade - I don't think that's done much today?).
i have learned plenty of skills, and some took years, and it's never ending. but some came - essentially - effortlessly (or appeared effortless relative to peers' efforts).
My claim is that the latter is a skill that nobody is born with. Autistic savants aren't some type of magic creature that know things just by virtue of being savants. They still have to go through the process of skill acquisition. Now that process may be accelerated compared to me or you, but I disagree with your claim of proficiency with zero effort, especially with skills that have shown to require thousands of hours of deliberate practice to establish proficiency.
I think the key is in your last statement: "or appeared effortless relative to peers' efforts". It seems you found yourself in an environment which didn't sufficiently challenge you. This would only argue that you should've been pushed up to more challenging AP/honors classes. This would again have the effect of placing you in a higher standing compared to your peers. So if both you and your peers would be pushed to your true potential, it seems consistent with your statements to say your performance/output would've been superior.
So why should colleges deny you entry because of your ability to be proficient in the system they've set up?
Plus, to what extent is the capacity for hard work based on luck? If long hours give you clinical depression because you got 50 bad genes and experienced neglect as a child and lived in a house with lead paint, do you get sent to live in a slum with the rest of the "lazy" people?