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Comment by EMIRELADERO | Hacker News Reader

I don't see enough commentary on the social issues behind this.

There should be no exam in which the stakes are high enough to justify those measures.

How do you propose they do college admissions then?

Implement a foundational year, similar to the Ciclo Básico Común (CBC) in Argentina, my country, which all students must pass to move on to their chosen majors. This serves both as a basic foundation for all students and acts as a filter to manage the number of students who continue to the specific fields of study.

For some highly competitive fields, like medicine or law, an entrance exam is implemented. This isn't a comprehensive test like the SAT or ACT, it's specific to the field of study.

One extra year of study before beginning the major will be prohibitively expensive for the lower middle class and the poor people.

In my country's case, the colleges where the CBC is implemented are public and free for all students on the undergrad level (subsidized by taxes) and very affordable for masters/PhD.

The expense is the opportunity cost, the time spent not working for money.

Yes, that's what I meant.

People like us are blessed to not have to hustle to earn since we are 18 yos.

But I have seen, first hand, people dropping out of really good opportunities when they have the smallest chance to earn an income.

You can work and go to school at the same time.

Don't have a broken, monstrously expensive educational system?

It wouldn't need to require an extra year. The courses available in that first year could be general courses which apply to all majors.

That's a good solution, but works only for not-so-involved subjects?

If you want to study Physics, CS, etc., then, this will not possibly work.

Unless we make papers common to multiple majors.

Perhaps they could ask the other countries that don’t turn off the entire internet.

Germany has a mix of (semi) standardized tests with student performance over the last two (three) years. Additionally universities are usually very lenient on acceptance (at least in engineering/science), but very harsh on failing students. (Which is a much fairer system IMO)

Most countries are able to do standardized testing without shutting down the internet

How come rest of the world don’t block the internet during the college admissions?

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