I think it would be pretty amusing if they got 50000 applicants, admitted 20000, and then said "guess what Cambridge, we're building 200 new dormitories, here, there, and everywhere."
Joseph Heath has a very interesting article comparing US elite schools (tiny undergrad program) and Canadian elite schools (massive undergrad programs, bigger than Ivy League)
http://induecourse.ca/the-bottleneck-in-u-s-higher-education...
For reference, there's 12 Houses at Harvard. With a bit of paperwork, they could each be a separate college, pushing Dartmouth all the way down completely out of the top 20. But would the education at Dartmouth have gotten worse in any way?
Rephrased, what if we instead classify the Ivy League as a single college with eight campuses? What's the difference?
If the US ascribed sainted elite status to the top 100 colleges to the top 100 colleges, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. By contrast in Canada if you went to UBC, McGill or UBC people assume you are smart.
I don’t think there’s a bottleneck here. The real bottleneck is that people who don’t go to top schools are considered to be inherently inferior and objective failures like myself.
Faculty positions are so competitive that I don’t think there’s a huge difference in the quality of the younger professors, just the bigger schools will have more profs and bigger research groups.
I was part of an experiment where the physics department at my uni admitted everyone who applied. Even those without the required prerequisites. Most of the "extras" dropped out or transfered or failed etc. But about 20% graduated.
I think in one way this proved the normal application system was mostly effective. But it also gave people chances they never would have had. I was insulted (I'd got my grades!) initially but it taught me something about opportunity. Maybe we'd be better doing this everywhere?