Thomas Sowell
College Admissions Voodoo
Every year about this time, high school students get
letters of admission -- or rejection -- from colleges
around the country. The saddest part of this process is
not their rejections but the assumption by some
students that they were rejected because they just
didn't measure up to the high standards of Ivy U. or
their flagship state university.
The cold fact is that objective admissions standards
are seldom decisive at most colleges. The admissions
process is so shot through with fads and
unsubstantiated assumptions that it is more like voodoo
than anything else.
A student who did not get admitted to Ivy U. may be a
better student than some -- or even most -- of those
who did. Admissions officials love to believe that they
can spot all sorts of intangibles that outweigh test
scores and grade-point averages.
Such notions are hardly surprising in people who pay no
price for being wrong. All sorts of self-indulgences
are possible when people are unaccountable, whether
they be college admissions officials, parole boards,
planning commissions or copy-editors.
What is amazing is that nobody puts the notions and
fetishes of college admissions offices to a test.
Nothing would be easier than to admit half of a
college's entering class on the basis of objective
standards, such as test scores, and the other half
according to the voodoo of the admissions office. Then,
four years later, you could compare how the two halves
of the class did.
But_apparently_this_would_not_be_politic.
Among the many reasons given for rejecting objective
admissions standards is that they are "unfair." Much is
made of the fact that high test scores are correlated
with high family income.
Very little is made of the statistical principle that
correlation is not causation. Practically nothing is
made of the fact that, however a student got to where
he is academically, that is in fact where he is -- and
that is usually a better predictor of where he is going
to go than is the psychobabble of admissions
committees.
The denigration of objective standards allows
admissions committees to play little tin gods, who
think that their job is to reward students who are
deserving, sociologically speaking, rather than to
select students who can produce the most bang for the
buck from the money contributed by donors and taxpayers
for the purpose of turning out the best quality
graduates possible.
Typical of the mindset that rejects the selection of
students in the order of objective performances was a
recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education
which said that colleges should "select randomly" from
a pool of applicants who are "good enough." Nowhere in
the real world, where people must face the consequences
of their decisions, would such a principle be taken
seriously.
Lots of pitchers are "good enough" to be in the major
leagues but would you just as soon send one of those
pitchers to the mound to pitch the deciding game of the
World Series as you would send Randy Johnson or Roger
Clemens out there with the world championship on the
line?
Lots of military officers were considered to be "good
enough" to be generals in World War II but troops who
served under General Douglas MacArthur or General
George Patton had more victories and fewer casualties.
How many more lives would you be prepared to sacrifice
as the price of selecting randomly among generals
considered to be "good enough"?
If you or your child had to have a major operation for
a life-threatening condition, would you be just as
content to have the surgery done by anyone who was
"good enough" to be a surgeon, as compared to someone
who was a top surgeon in the relevant specialty?
The difference between first-rate and second-rate
people is enormous in many fields. In a college
classroom, marginally qualified students can affect the
whole atmosphere and hold back the whole class.
In some professions, a large part of the time of
first-rate people is spent countering the half-baked
ideas of second-rate people and trying to salvage
something from the wreckage of the disasters they
create. "Good enough" is seldom good enough.
Thomas Sowell, a fellow at the Hoover Institution, is
author of several books, including his latest, "Applied
Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One."
--
LP
"We are fighting today for security, for progress,
and for peace, not only for ourselves but for all
men, not only for one generation but for all
generations. We are fighting to cleanse the world
of ancient evils, ancient ills."
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
State of the Union Address - 1942
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