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The Case Against Admissions Selectivity. For nearly all undergraduate programs, it does more harm than good.
James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | February 10, 2023 | Frederick M. Hess

Posted on 02/10/2023 7:05:03 AM PST by karpov

It’s time to do away with selective college admissions for undergraduate education.

Now, let’s get the caveats out of the way. When it comes to specific training that requires particular skills (as with engineering or the performing arts) or courses of study where social benefit makes the case for some screening (as with nursing programs or the military academies), there’s an obvious case for performance-based selectivity. These are instances where prerequisites and demonstrated performance have an obvious, discernible import. Likewise, when it comes to professional schools or graduate training, that’s a different conversation.

But should we embrace selectivity in undergraduate education writ large? Nah. It’s time for the Stanfords, Swarthmores, and state flagships to show that they’re actually effective at educating students and not just at vacuuming up high-achievers, parking them in lecture halls and TA-led sections for four years, and then handing them off to consulting firms and graduate schools—all while charging students massive sums for the privilege of being selected.

After all, what’s the rationale for allowing these heavily subsidized institutions to pick and choose their student bodies? There are at least four claims that commonly get made, but none are especially persuasive.

One argument is that good teaching is a scarce, valuable commodity, and the best teachers should therefore work with the students who will benefit most. This sounds compelling until you realize that there’s little evidence that selective institutions employ the best teachers or care about teaching. Indeed, an analysis by scholars at Columbia University and Yeshiva University compared teaching at elite institutions with instruction at less selective colleges and found no evidence that teaching was better at the former. That ought not to surprise.

(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...


TOPICS: Education
KEYWORDS: college; collegeadmissions
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I don't favor a lottery giving an equal chance to every 12th grader, but I think a lottery for selective colleges among applicants who meet certain requirements, such as earning an A- average in a set of academic classes in high school, and getting a 1400 or 1500 out of 1600 on the SAT, is worth considering.
1 posted on 02/10/2023 7:05:03 AM PST by karpov
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To: karpov

I think college is stupid for almost everyone.

Go to vocational training for almost all careers. Start your life at 18. Avoid the huge debt and try to get On The Job Training from your employer.

Now, if you want to build bridges, be a doctor, or do a few other things, college is a necessity. And those schools should be very selective. Only really gifted people should work in those fields. Forget diversity. You can either do the work, or you can’t.

Most people would benefit from skipping the indoctrination and the debt of Higher Education. For the most part, it’s a scam.


2 posted on 02/10/2023 7:13:09 AM PST by ClearCase_guy (“You want it one way, but it’s the other way”)
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To: karpov

It’s time for the Stanfords, Swarthmores, and state flagships to show that they’re actually effective at educating students and not just at vacuuming up high-achievers, parking them in lecture halls and TA-led sections for four years, and then handing them off to consulting firms and graduate schools—all while charging students massive sums for the privilege of being selected.
*************
There’s also the problem of who is doing the selecting. Mainly leftists trying to advance the careers of their juvenile followers.


3 posted on 02/10/2023 7:13:58 AM PST by Socon-Econ (adi)
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To: karpov
But should we embrace selectivity in undergraduate education writ large? Nah. It’s time for the Stanfords, Swarthmores, and state flagships to show that they’re actually effective at educating students and not just at vacuuming up high-achievers, parking them in lecture halls and TA-led sections for four years, and then handing them off to consulting firms and graduate schools—all while charging students massive sums for the privilege of being selected.

What utter nonsense. The lack of effective selective admittance standards is why 40% of student debt holders never graduated. They cannot handle the academic requirements of college, and should never have been admitted. But they are often 'affirmative action' enrollees.

4 posted on 02/10/2023 7:14:50 AM PST by Yo-Yo (Is the /Sarc tag really necessary? Pray for President Biden: Psalm 109:8)
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To: Yo-Yo

And the Superbowl should let anyone who wants to watch the game in.

Also, how many students change their major once they are in college.


5 posted on 02/10/2023 7:22:26 AM PST by CoastWatcher
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To: karpov

I have had similar thoughts. The Ivies freely acknowledge that their top 1000 rejected students could easily replace all but the few true geniuses among their accepted students, and no one would be able to tell the difference in terms of achievement. So why do High School students (and worse, their parents) pin their self-worth on the decision of an admissions committee that is looking at hundreds of identical resume’s. Set a minimum standard of achievement, add whatever non-objective variables you must (race sports wealth) and then everyone above that level you just deal the best students out among the top 100 colleges.


6 posted on 02/10/2023 7:26:12 AM PST by babble-on
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To: Yo-Yo

The lack of effective selective admittance standards is why 40% of student debt holders never graduated. They cannot handle the academic requirements of college, and should never have been admitted. But they are often ‘affirmative action’ enrollees.
**********
Selection would remedy this only if it was based on objective, impartially applied merit criteria. Far from true today. If we are to keep selection, we need to reform the selection process i.e., no more racial or sexual quotas; no credits for service in causes.


7 posted on 02/10/2023 7:30:29 AM PST by Socon-Econ (adi)
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To: karpov

P


8 posted on 02/10/2023 7:36:28 AM PST by wintertime ( Behind every government school teacher stand armed police.( Real bullets in those guns on the hip!))
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To: Socon-Econ
Selection would remedy this only if it was based on objective, impartially applied merit criteria.

That's what the ACT and SAT tests used to be for. But today many colleges have stopped using the test scores as part of their admissions criteria.

More Than 80% Of Four-Year Colleges Won’t Require Standardized Tests For Fall 2023 Admissions

9 posted on 02/10/2023 7:36:43 AM PST by Yo-Yo (Is the /Sarc tag really necessary? Pray for President Biden: Psalm 109:8)
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To: ClearCase_guy

Re: Doctors and college
Ping for comment later.


10 posted on 02/10/2023 7:38:03 AM PST by wintertime ( Behind every government school teacher stand armed police.( Real bullets in those guns on the hip!))
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To: Yo-Yo

Such nonsense that I am still unsure if the article was offered as satire, structured as a conceit on self-contradiction.

“When it comes to specific training that requires particular skills (as with engineering or the performing arts) or courses of study where social benefit makes the case for some screening (as with nursing programs or the military academies), there’s an obvious case for performance-based selectivity. These are instances where prerequisites and demonstrated performance have an obvious, discernible import. Likewise, when it comes to professional schools or graduate training, that’s a different conversation.”

Hmm...If “selectivity” and “preparation” are necessary for areas of study that MATTER, doesn’t that imply that areas that require nothing of students “DON’T MATTER”? Why spend billions on programs that DON’T MATTER enough to require prepared, high-achieving students? If lazy dullards are routinely admitted, what incentive to high school students have to work hard? Does a heavy dose of dullards drag down the entire program and prevent good students from achieving much of anything? What’s the purpose of a university program if high achievement is not the goal? Or is the real purpose to scoop up money to use for high faculty pay, palatial facilities, etc.? Frederick Hess must be Exhibit A.


11 posted on 02/10/2023 8:00:00 AM PST by Chewbarkah
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To: karpov

I have a much better idea. Your author admits that “performance based selectivity” is a good idea for some programs of study. I suggest that all other programs of study be abolished,


12 posted on 02/10/2023 8:03:41 AM PST by NorthMountain (... the right of the peopIe to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed)
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To: Yo-Yo

Selection would remedy this only if it was based on objective, impartially applied merit criteria.
.........
That’s what the ACT and SAT tests used to be for. But today many colleges have stopped using the test scores as part of their admissions criteria.
************
The biased selectors also move applicants from poor households and those participating in leftist slanted extracurricular activities to the head of the “competence” line.


13 posted on 02/10/2023 8:06:38 AM PST by Socon-Econ (adi)
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To: ClearCase_guy

“Only really gifted people should work in those fields.”

Problem I see here is who is gifted toward a particular field? To achieve the best opportunity to enter a college the student has to perform at a high level of nothing more than attendance, basic thoughts, and not killing someone or getting jailed for selling dope. Everything K through 12 is to teach how to learn...not learn. The tools are provided for further education. This is why there normally aren’t any degrees in fields awarded at 17 to 18 years of age. There may be an interest, but selecting the best of the best isn’t on the horizon of the students when the best can just tie their shoes.

This type of education they are talking about is assembly line. And who will provide the students to the fields that don’t pay as much? Do we now have to create a study for fast food server? And whose to say the students are qualified to be in those career fields? Many I’ve seen in fast food restaurants and volume stores like Walmart can’t even count back change. Guess that’s a post grad effort.

wy69


14 posted on 02/10/2023 8:18:55 AM PST by whitney69
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To: ClearCase_guy

“if you want to build bridges,”

Maybe. The Romans built some amazing bridges without benefit of college degrees. Even in modern times, Roebling who invented the suspension bridge and designed the Brooklyn Bridge didn’t have a university degree, finishing his education at 18 after a couple semesters at a building academy in Berlin.


15 posted on 02/10/2023 8:37:41 AM PST by irishjuggler
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To: ClearCase_guy

Here’s one of the first engineered bridges, I have one near my home near the Erie Canal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whipple_Cast_and_Wrought_Iron_Bowstring_Truss_Bridge


16 posted on 02/10/2023 8:43:39 AM PST by 1Old Pro
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To: karpov

A lame attempt at trying to justify reducing the number of whites and asians in top schools in favor of less or unqualified minorities.


17 posted on 02/10/2023 8:44:14 AM PST by Brooklyn Attitude (I went to bed on November 3rd 2020 and woke up in 1984.)
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To: karpov

If you are smart you would stay away from any university.


18 posted on 02/10/2023 8:48:22 AM PST by P-Marlowe (I got the <ΙΧΘΥΣ>< variant. Catch it. John 3:16)
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To: Chewbarkah
>"If “selectivity” and “preparation” are necessary for areas of study that MATTER, doesn’t that imply that areas that require nothing of students “DON’T MATTER”? Why spend billions on programs that DON’T MATTER"<

Here's what I'd like to see happen:

The federal government should end FAFSA (tuition aid) to universities. Instead, it should offer "scholarships" for students to study fields that are in-demand - for example, engineers, mathematicians, doctors, etc. These degree programs should be rigorous.

Then, let community colleges offer bachelor degrees for other majors. The same professors teaching at universities already teach at community colleges now. The only reason CC's are restricted from offering bachelor degrees is that universities have blocked them.

19 posted on 02/10/2023 9:12:22 AM PST by Tired of Taxes
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To: ClearCase_guy

Most of the knowledge required for professions such as medicine, dentistry, engineering etc. is rote. For example, how much does calculus, or first semester chemistry change in a year? Even in the graduate school programs little changes in the textbooks from year to year. Brick and mortar classrooms are not needed for these courses.

Obviously, laboratory and clinical rotations do require personal supervision in buildings but most of the rest does not.

It cost my associate $250,000 to acquire his education. This was 15 years ago. With used textbooks and secure certifiable testing of knowledge acquired, his cost for his education could have been $25,000.


20 posted on 02/11/2023 6:57:15 AM PST by wintertime ( Behind every government school teacher stand armed police.( Real bullets in those guns on the hip!))
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