Slashdot Mirror
Is It Time To Throw Out the College Application System?
An anonymous reader points out this opinion piece by professor Adam Grant that questions how useful the current college application system is and suggests some alternate methods to gather information about candidates. The college admissions system is broken. When students submit applications, colleges learn a great deal about their competence from grades and test scores, but remain in the dark about their creativity and character. Essays, recommendation letters and alumni interviews provide incomplete information about students' values, social and emotional skills, and capacities for developing and discovering new ideas. This leaves many colleges favoring achievement robots who excel at the memorization of rote knowledge, and overlooking talented C students. Those with less than perfect grades might go on to dream up blockbuster films like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg or become entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs.
If they get C's in highschool, it is because they are lazy (both intellectually and in terms of work ethic).
To me, that is a great indicator that they aren't ready for a doubling or tripling of workload that Colleges dump on undergrads and expect said undergrads to complete on their own initiative.
And besides, it isn't like that is a mile high barrier to overcome. Part of the point of the community college is to allow poor performing students an opportunity to redeem themselves before going to a four-year institution.
And besides, didn't Jobs very famously drop out from college? Because if his argument is that we should admit poor performers so they can drop out and become billionaires, I fail to see why we should have admitted them in the first place since they were independently successful despite college.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Go to a community/state college. I'm that "C" student who a lot of people see creative potential in, and frankly I wouldn't want to go to a competitive state university for Comp Sci? Why? Literally 5 more math classes, quite a few of them 4 credit hours instead of the usual 3. If I wanted to be a video game programmer or write the next vmware perhaps it would be worth it, but then how would I hack College Algebra through Differential Equations? Http://www.spcollege.edu/uploadedFiles/Academics/STEM/Math/College-Mathematics-Pathways.pdf , take a look there if you are interested in the course sequence for college math here in FL. Professors more interested in keeping the grant money flowing because that is their *real* job so TA's teach the class. I'm going to one right now for a 2 year degree in networking (basics + CCNA), then an articulated 4 year in IT dev and management(more programming + business stuff). Look, the CC/state college is not perfect. You have to sign up for classes early to get the good professors and time-slots (if you aren't doing online). You will have some incompetent teachers. The amenities (gym, lounge areas, student housing if it exists) will be worse, and there is less of a sense of community. But ultimately, when I asked all the people I know personally in the field if they would go the Uni route or the CC route, after showing them the course sequences, they ALL suggested the state school. The truth I believe that prestigious schools often seem to be best suited for those who truly like academic rigor, and that is not your average C student. Much better to have a degree from a state school than to flunk out of the university, right? And that doesn't even take TUITION in to account! There is still an unsolved issue left: employers want to see big name schools. They definitely make you stand out. The thing is: this is basically a way around IQ and skills testing for jobs that are not legal. They know you are bright if you graduated from Harvard Law, or Berkeley CS. Arguably, they also know you are better able to put up with "the shit". I do not have the answer for distinguishing ones-self if they go to a "lesser" school except by contributing to existing projects, starting your own, and becoming active in Phi Beta Kappa, student government, etc in order to network.
University efforts are best spent taking those who are ready and capable and stuffing their heads full of new ideas. There are people who are not ready or capable, but trying to find ways to slip them in and hoping they reinvent themselves in time to take advantage of the opportunity (if that's even possible) would be neglecting those who are ready - many of them would end up in remedial classes or just taking the easiest things possible to survive. Maybe they should wait a year and wander Europe, or otherwise take some time to get their life together first.
I was one of the C-B students who did all the gifted classes in high school but never had the grades. When I went to University, the first two years I loved the freedom and the content of the classes but was as lazy as I had been in high school on the grades. It was only later that I started taking things seriously. The first two years might as well have been wasted, plus I chose a university well below par for my abilities (wasn't even nearly the best one I got into). I think I turned out pretty well looking back 18 years later, but statistically, I was probably bad betting odds. Universities should focus on people who are actually ready to learn, rather than figuring out ways to churn out more people who are likely to drop out. Slashdot, in turn, should stop pandering to people who never learned to focus who drop out of university and console themselves by extolling the virtues of being an autodidact, of not knowing how to dress or clean themselves and paint themselves as "natural" or "different" or "fighting the system", and similar.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Not only that, but people like George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, or Steve Jobs probably would have excelled regardless of the application system or which college they went to. From a quick read up on wikipedia, it doesn't sound like any of them had trouble getting into university.
Also I think it's important not talk about anomolies in the statistical data (which is what these people are) when trying to figure out what will work best for a large population of students. Not being able to get B's or higher in highschool shows a sincere lack of effort, or general lack of intelligence needed to succeed in university, college, or future careers. Sure you might be the next Steve Jobs, but then, you don't need college anyway, so it's not important how the educational system is set up.
It's the same reason why I can't see why so many people push their kids to try to be professional athletes. Sure the professionals make a boat load of money, but they are statistical outliers, and those who don't make it to the pros, are left with very little in terms of job prospects. Had they spent the same amount of time push their kid in academic endeavors, they would have no problem getting into a decent college, and would have plenty of very good career opportunities where they could make a very comfortable living.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
The issue isn't really about college admissions. It's about our entire education system. Throughout the entire system, we promote and encourage "achievement robots". That's what most of society believes that we need, when you get down to it. Part of the reason there are "talented C students" in the first place is because we take talented children and say to them, "You don't fit the mold, so I'm going to treat you like you're mediocre, at best. Here's your 'C'. If you want an 'A' or a 'B', please fit the mold better."
Our education system is not about seeking success for each child and promoting the welfare of each child. It's a factory, turning out little 'appropriately successful human being' cogs and tossing out any units that are determined to be 'defective'. "You're not what we were looking for. As a society, we don't want to invest in whatever your potential is. Go get a job in a service industry."
Most colleges operate that way too, to an extent. Since that's what our highschools are, and that's what our colleges are, of course that's what the college application process will be. It's perfectly appropriate for what we're trying to do. The question is, are we trying to do the right thing?
Having worked my entire working life with both white and blue collar workers, I can tell you that after 20 years or so of manual labor, those men (and increasingly women) suffer from carpal tunnel, bad backs, and all sorts of chronic injuries. A not-insignificant percentage are on disability, unable to hold down any job.
This is not because they're lazy or faking it.
Manual labor is hard, and after many years their bodies break down. And chronic injuries don't go away when you retire.
So yes, you can make a lot of money initially, but there's a price to pay.
"doing well in school is consistently the strongest predictor of doing well in school"
And if they aren't going to perform well in school maybe they shouldn't be going to school?
The US has a huge shortage in the trades because we stopped telling high school students to go into plumbing, welding, electrical, etc. Suddenly the 'poor' student that would have excelled in something hands on like a trade were told "Go to college! You'll make more. Just pick something you like."
It's why we have a ton of "college graduates" that can't find a job because we don't need more Psychology majors with only a BS.
I can tell you that after 20 years or so of manual labor, those men (and increasingly women) suffer from carpal tunnel, bad backs, and all sorts of chronic injuries.
Have you looked at what they are eating? If you don't fuel your body to rebuild itself, then it's going to fall apart.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Yes, though 22 + 22 is a bad example. However, it appears they don't teach this in a coherent way; they try to teach the calculation shortcuts before teaching the concept of adding multi-digit numbers. And further, they use cutsey names like "numbers with friends" (which, among their other problems, confuse the parents) and then test the kids on this non-standard terminology.
No, there is still only one answer; the current system.
I'm not from the US, but is there really only one system? Doesn't each institution get to choose for itself which students it chooses to recruit, subject to a few legal safeguards to prevent discrimination or the misuse of public funds?
The professor who wrote the original article would do well to ask himself why an entire industry - made up of many thousands of intelligent admissions tutors, each of whom is trying to make the best possible choices - gets its decision making process completely wrong while he is the sole proponent of the Better Path. I'm all in favour of challenging consensus, but, at first sight, this seems a little rich for my taste.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
I was a college athlete in a Division 1 college. I attended an academically rigorous school (Lehigh University) and got an engineering degree while playing sports.
You will have to spend a lot of time training in highschool at the expense of academic endeavors to get anywhere close to being competitive at the college level.
This is not true at all. Academics is only sacrificed if your time management skills are poor. Sports practice typically takes 2-5 hours per day depending on the sport and time of year. With game days and weekends it's usually a 20-35 hours/week commitment. If you cannot cram your academic schedule into the remaining 11-12+ waking hours when you aren't practicing/competing then you are doing it wrong.
They give you tutors because they know you don't have enough time to do proper studying.
No, they have tutors because if you are struggling with a subject your eligibility to play can be revoked. Some students need the tutoring, others don't. No different than any other part of the student body. Generally speaking most teams insist that athletes attend mandatory study halls with the rest of the team until they prove they can handle the academic load without help. On our team all freshman were required to attend, as was anyone whose GPA was under 3.0.
You'll have to choose classes that work around your training schedule rather than the ones that are important academically.
Again, generally not true. Sometimes there is a conflict with a class but it's the exception rather than the rule. I had one conflict once and I simply took the class in question the following semester.
You won't be able to take degrees like engineering because there are too many class and lab hours and it would conflict with the training regimen.
Not at all true. I got an engineering degree with all the attendant labs and other classes. I'd be happy to introduce you to (literally) hundreds of other student athletes who did the same thing. My wife played D1 sports in the Big 10 and now is a physician. I had a lab that ran into practice once a week on two occasions. The lab ended at 4 and practice started at 3:30. I just got to practice a bit late those days and stayed a little after. The notion that you cannot get the classes you need/want is complete nonsense except in rare cases.
I seriously doubt that most people could pull off a useful degree while still maintaining their obligations to the sports side of things.
Then you have no idea what you are talking about. It's not only possible, it happens all the time. Very few athletes are going to become professionals in their sports and the rest of them have to get a degree they can do something with.
The coach isn't going to recommend that they stay on the team for next year when they constantly want to skip practice to study.
NOBODY in Division 1 sports skips practice to study. They don't even ask. You learn to manage your time and work very hard. If you cannot handle it then you drop the sport, not the studying.
And there's always the chance you will have an injury, and then your scholarship is gone.
It's a possibility but then you are just like every other student. In practice it rarely happens. Generally speaking they don't pull scholarships before the end of the academic year unless you quit the team. Even for serious injuries they'll generally keep you on scholarship until it is absolutely certain you cannot play ever again. I'm sure you can find some examples of shit-head coaches being mean but it doesn't usually happen. There have been discussions (serious ones) of multi-year non-revokable scholarships though nothing to my knowledge has happened yet.