Random Admissions Above the Bar

 [[{“value”:”Jon Klick, Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School (and a distinguished GMU econ grad), argues that Penn should “abandon the fiction that holistic evaluation is anything more than a way to hide discretion.” Instead, Penn should set a standardized test score floor and then randomly choose its admittees from the pool
The post Random Admissions Above the Bar appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.”}]] 

Jon Klick, Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School (and a distinguished GMU econ grad), argues that Penn should “abandon the fiction that holistic evaluation is anything more than a way to hide discretion.”

Instead, Penn should set a standardized test score floor and then randomly choose its admittees from the pool of applicants meeting that requirement.  That’s it; that’s the application process.  Setting a floor helps make sure the matriculating class has the requisite cognitive ability to succeed but otherwise limits concerns about ideology being privileged over academic merit.  Random selection (as opposed to just taking the highest test scores) recognizes that standardized tests may be too blunt to make fine distinctions among students and generates a campus population that approximates the population of smart young adults along many more dimensions than we currently consider.

Faculty have largely abandoned the job of admitting students to a professional class of admissions officers. A standardized test floor would simplify the process for universities and reduce the rent-seeking scramble of high-school students to add yet more extra-curricular eye-candy to their highly-crafted personal statements.

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 Economics, Education