Reply to Fairness of Common Lottery?

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Reply to "Fairness of Common Lottery?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The system is designed for people to rank their TRUE preference and not try to game out others on their choose. (The only exception being the choice to include safety schools at the bottom of your list.)[/quote]

What has anyone suggested about revising the new common lottery that indicates gaming the system?[/quote]

Under the current system, you can't improve your chances of getting into a school by a different ranking. Under the change being proposed, you can. That's gaming.[/quote]

To me it's absurd to call it "gaming", but semantics aside, please explain clearly why making the rankings matter is gaming?  If you don't have a shot at your #1 (if it's popular) unless you rank it #1, why in the world is that bad?  Regardless of what name you want to call it and the judgements you want to apply to it, explain how increasing the likelihood that a higher % of families ranked their matched school #1 is in any way a bad thing or undesireable thing?[/quote]

The current lottery is designed so that no voluntary trades are possible. What that means is there is no outcome where two families look at their results and say "I'll trade my spot at school X for your spot at school Y" and both are better off. The reason this is true is that one of these families was ranked higher than the other in the lottery. If the higher-ranked family got school X and the lower family got school Y, then both X and Y were available to the higher-ranked family -- that's the way the lottery works. The higher-ranked family got X because they ranked X over Y. Ergo they are not voluntarily going to trade X for Y.

That's the theory.

What this leaves out is intensity of feeling, which I think is where the PP is coming from. What if the higher-ranked family is actually pretty ambivalent about X and Y, and only slightly prefers X, while the lower-ranked family really, really wants X and loathes Y. There would be a net increase in satisfaction if the higher family were forced to take Y over X and their spot was given to the lower family. In purely utilitarian terms this would be more optimal. In many circumstances people would voluntarily make this switch if it were explained to them, people do small favors all the time even for strangers if it doesn't cost them anything.

The problem with this enhancement isn't theoretical, it's practical. How do you gauge other people's utility? The proposed solution -- giving extra consideration to a #1 pick -- isn't nearly subtle enough. What if I'm OK with my number one through three picks, but four or lower would cause me to move out of DC. Should someone with a lower lottery number get my spot at my number three school just because they ranked it number one? Even if their number two is a perfectly reasonable alternative?[/quote]

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