Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How would people feel about a lottery for college admissions? So for example: everyone with 1500 plus and 4.0 gets a lottery ticket to a top school. That seems to be the only way to solve all the angst. Otherwise things will continue to be legislated.

This is often suggested, and it is very very silly.

You are suggesting that colleges don't get to build their class and choose their students, and that students don't get to choose the college they apply to, or at best only get to apply to one.

Worse for the colleges, worse for the student, and somehow that is more "fair"? By pulling names out of a hat?

I suggest you rethink this idea.

If colleges are telling the truth about having multiple qualified applicants for every seat, why should they care?

Because under your system they won't get that.

Because if they thought pulling names out of a hat was the best way to do it, that is what they would do al;ready.

Because they know that a thoughtful selection process is the best way to increase likelihood of good results, which is why a thoughtful selection process is used for every college, job, program, selective club, etc on the planet.

Nonsense. Harvard can say we want a 3.8 UW GPA a 1540 SAT and x number of leadership positions or y number of service hours or z varsity letters. All the kids who hit that criteria, get their names drawn out of a hat. If you trust schools more, applicants are marked as qualified or not and everyone qualified goes into a lottery.

DP. But, that's not what Harvard wants. They want to build a class with a diverse blend of backgrounds and qualifications. When will parents here figure out that this is not about their kid? The school wants to build the class it wants for whatever reasons it wants -- it's not just about academics, and for that matter, academics are not just about GPA and test scores.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How would people feel about a lottery for college admissions? So for example: everyone with 1500 plus and 4.0 gets a lottery ticket to a top school. That seems to be the only way to solve all the angst. Otherwise things will continue to be legislated.

So what happens when the orchestra doesn't have any violinists, or the football team doesn't have a quarterback or the chem department doesn't have any org chem students? Or when the student body is 80% lesbians?

Right, what OP had overlooked is the fact that admissions are not about the student, they are about building the class.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How would people feel about a lottery for college admissions? So for example: everyone with 1500 plus and 4.0 gets a lottery ticket to a top school. That seems to be the only way to solve all the angst. Otherwise things will continue to be legislated.

So what happens when the orchestra doesn't have any violinists, or the football team doesn't have a quarterback or the chem department doesn't have any org chem students? Or when the student body is 80% lesbians?

Well it shouldn’t matter if at the end the goal is just academic achievement performance. Seems like lottery is the only way to stop the scapegoating.

There is no college or university in the US who has a mission of rewarding "academic achievement performance" - their missions are to create communities of learning which are generally predicated on varying viewpoints, perspectives and lived lives. A lottery will undermine that mission.

+1000

It is only state schools that guarantee admission to the Top X% of the HS grads in their state (of their individual HS class). And even then, they do not fill the entire class that way.

90% of students must be in state at UTexas Austin. 75% of those in-state slots must be guaranteed, so 25% of the instate slots are open to other instate students. The remaining 10% overall is typically OOS, as who doesn't want OOS tuition flowing. But that is about as close as you will come to a lottery. Which is fine for in-state schools to do, if they wish. Most states have a much smaller percentage guaranteed if at all

Anonymous wrote:Texas does this. Top x percent of every HS is guaranteed admissions to UT i believe. State schools can and should do that. Private universities can do what they want to build the class they want.
Us doesnt have a national curriculum and few national tests (and those are optional) so its harder to compare across the population. Other countries are often smaller or have national subject tests which scores determine everything (hence cram schools in Korea and other places). Id much rather have a national curriculum and meaningful subject tests to see that our population is actually educated to some standard but that would never fly.

Tried that with "common core" and it was a disaster. Stop with the standardized testing.
In lower income schools, it often meant teachers spent a good 20% of their time "Teaching to the test" I knew schools that spent the first 15-20 mins of everyday in ES with the kids taking "mini standardized tests" then grading them and going over them. Every. SIngle.Day. 30 mins of the day "wasted" IMO. Rather than just focusing on teaching math or reading they focused on test taking. And teachers and schools were penalized if kids were "below level". But there was no rationality to the process: for example, if a class of 3rd graders came in reading at 3rd month of K as an average level, and in May of 3rd grade they are reading at the 2nd month of 2nd grade, those kids are "below grade level" on paper. But using a bit of common sense tells you those kids made HUGE progress---they advanced 2 grade levels (minus 1 month) in less than 1 school year!!!! That should be celebrated, this teacher finally reached the kids, the kids were finally able to learn and advance. They should not be punished because they are "below grade level".

Yet that is exactly what happened.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here- I just think people seem to be all over the place with this ruling. People are frustrated about diversity and holistic review but then get mad about a lottery system that would essential be the most objective possible solution. The most logical solution to put all things to rest would be a lottery. No room to be upset either way.

Because people are fine with certain types of discrimination (i.e. building a diverse class) as long as it doesn't impact them

Well, yes. Lots of discrimination is perfectly acceptable. When you choose a side salad with your meal instead of French fries, you discriminated. That doesn’t make it wrong. Discrimination in and of itself isn’t inherently wrong. Discrimination for some REASONS is unlawful. But I mean universities discriminate against every student with an SAT below 1500 in OP’s scenario…. That’s discrimination…

Especially using a test that has been statistically shown to have a disparate impact based on race.

Anonymous wrote:The brutal truth is that we (regular people) do not get to decide how colleges and universities should "just" do this or that. They've stated very clearly that they want a racially, economically, religiously, and geographically diverse group of kids.

You may think that is worthless, but you won't be able to convince them of that by complaining on an anonymous message board.

I agree with this! If folks hate the values of these schools so much, why are they dying to get in? Seems they don’t know anything about the schools other than the ranking (which is really evident when kids apply to all Ivies as if they are interchangeable).

Why don't people understand that college and work after college is about way more than grades and scores?

Colleges do not just want the people with those numbers. They never did -- no school ever only took the top grades and the tops scores. Literally never. When did this narrative begin? Where did the idea come from?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here- I just think people seem to be all over the place with this ruling. People are frustrated about diversity and holistic review but then get mad about a lottery system that would essential be the most objective possible solution. The most logical solution to put all things to rest would be a lottery. No room to be upset either way.

Because people are fine with certain types of discrimination (i.e. building a diverse class) as long as it doesn't impact them

Well, yes. Lots of discrimination is perfectly acceptable. When you choose a side salad with your meal instead of French fries, you discriminated. That doesn’t make it wrong. Discrimination in and of itself isn’t inherently wrong. Discrimination for some REASONS is unlawful. But I mean universities discriminate against every student with an SAT below 1500 in OP’s scenario…. That’s discrimination…

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How would people feel about a lottery for college admissions? So for example: everyone with 1500 plus and 4.0 gets a lottery ticket to a top school. That seems to be the only way to solve all the angst. Otherwise things will continue to be legislated.

So what happens when the orchestra doesn't have any violinists, or the football team doesn't have a quarterback or the chem department doesn't have any org chem students? Or when the student body is 80% lesbians?

Well it shouldn’t matter if at the end the goal is just academic achievement performance. Seems like lottery is the only way to stop the scapegoating.

Why on earth do you think that is the end goal?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How would people feel about a lottery for college admissions? So for example: everyone with 1500 plus and 4.0 gets a lottery ticket to a top school. That seems to be the only way to solve all the angst. Otherwise things will continue to be legislated.

This is often suggested, and it is very very silly.

You are suggesting that colleges don't get to build their class and choose their students, and that students don't get to choose the college they apply to, or at best only get to apply to one.

Worse for the colleges, worse for the student, and somehow that is more "fair"? By pulling names out of a hat?

I suggest you rethink this idea.

If colleges are telling the truth about having multiple qualified applicants for every seat, why should they care?

Because “qualified” is just a baseline. The intangibles matter. Including the demographic makeups of the student body.

Anonymous wrote:How would people feel about a lottery for college admissions? So for example: everyone with 1500 plus and 4.0 gets a lottery ticket to a top school. That seems to be the only way to solve all the angst. Otherwise things will continue to be legislated.

You don’t actually have any right to be seriously considered for admission to a private institution. Or to have an equal chance. That’s not a thing. They are free to choose whoever they want for their classes. The SCOTUS ruling doesn’t change that.

The brutal truth is that we (regular people) do not get to decide how colleges and universities should "just" do this or that. They've stated very clearly that they want a racially, economically, religiously, and geographically diverse group of kids.

You may think that is worthless, but you won't be able to convince them of that by complaining on an anonymous message board.

Because different schools have different departments, endowments and strengths. Your lottery does not select for the students needed to fill out the different program areas.

How quickly would our universities devolve into technical schools? A pure lottery and all of a sudden the HYPs are 80% CS students.

Think...

You would need to REQUIRE scores. One sitting only is able to be provided. Not pick and choose subjects from different dates.

I don't know how you would adjust for the differences among schools and what they offer and the rigor. Some schools are on a strict 4.0 scale with no APs, some have honor which give an additional 0.5 per grade. Some schools have 18+ APs offered and kids take nearly that many while others may offer only in a few main courses and kids take 4-7.

Anonymous wrote:The problem with IT Factor is that they tend to see only PR images crafted by parents and consultants, outside of self-evident great achievers who perform in verifiable contests.

Just because you can’t tell the difference doesn’t mean others can’t.