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Right so you’re saying they could randomly pick from their applicant pool because right now only perfect scores apply.

But wouldn’t that cease being the case once scores are not taken into account? Presumably (retroactively speaking) I could have applied or my friends could have applied... now if they do a random selection they could get one of us...

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>Right so you’re saying they could randomly pick from their applicant pool because right now only perfect scores apply.

This would actually be a reasonable way to go. Set a cut off ACT/SAT/GPA and just do a lottery for kids that are above it. Actual fairness. Of course thats not what HPY + Stanford etc. are interested in. They are still just finishing schools for the elite. If you want actual meritocracy go to MIT or Caltech

This is an excellent question--that should be answered by data. Is there a thresholding effect? It could be that say there's not much difference in a hundred points in the SAT. But, maybe GPAs actually are more predictive. I assume that rec letters are useless to first approximation unless the recommender writes something about the student that raises flags.

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