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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think the lack of transparency is huge. They really need to switch to just having some basic paramaters (SATs/ACTs above X, top X% of graduating class) and then have a lottery for spots. [/quote]

That sounds like a recipe for going back to when it was  designed to admit even more advantaged students then the current system allows.  That's certainly not going to help the Fox News viewers that someone was posting about on here.[/quote]

But a lottery for students who meet certain clear academic thresholds would get rid of the admissions advantages for expensive sports or starting your own charity (that only your parents donate to - I have a friend whose kids used this to get into an Ivy) or getting an internship at your dad's friends company. With Khan academy a smart kid anywhere can study for the SATs and be in the top of their class if they have the drive.[/quote]

lottery away for your next future crop of private equity vultures and corporate lawyers. Who cares?  Maybe we could take a little more time and attention to find our future nuclear physicists and biochemists, etc.   not sure I want my transplant surgeon to be the lottery winner.[/quote]

THose jobs are not open to only people who went to Yale (or a top college). But if Yale said, there is no meaningful difference among students with SATs above 1550 who are in the top 5% of their graduating class so we will do a lottery I would take that over the current system. if they wanted to, they could run separate lotteries by state or to ensure a class that represents the U.S. by family income. But that takes power away from the school so it will never happen.[/quote]

I don't think it makes any sense to take some of our top universities that could train our next Einstein and have it just be a lottery.   I don't really know how to find the next Einstein, but probably MIT has a better idea of how to do it than we do.

For other disciplines a lottery might make more sense.[/quote]

Nobody proposed a pure lottery.

Say you have 10,000 students with perfect grades and perfect SAT scores, all ranked number one in their class. [i]A sane university would find the next Einstein by educating them all[/i]. After all, based on his own prior record, a 17-year-old Einstein would not get admitted to an American T20 in 2026.

But since educating all highly-qualified students is apparently out of the question, the next most sane approach is to select the lucky few by lottery. Instead we use “who lives in New Mexico” and “who has the most expensive independent counselor.”[/quote]

I don't know that perfect grades and perfect SAT scores are the absolute required criterion for success in for certain programs in certain disciplines.   Obviously these students need to have the ability to do high-level academic work, but what are the things that really help find the brains that best engage with scientific discoveries? In my opinion those are a public good.

If it's a lottery then great.   If it's not a lottery then let's not use the lottery.  I'm not sure some anonymous posters on DCUM  have the best answers for this conundrum.   And I doubt taking a wrecking ball to our scientific research budgets are going to be helpful either.[/quote]

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