Corona Daily 173: Principles of Selection

Most people know Parkinson’s Law: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. Parkinson’s Law, the book, is a masterpiece by C. Northcote Parkinson. Despite serious subjects and practical insights, his prose and style make me roll on the floor laughing every time I read it. In a chapter called “the short list, or principles of selection” Parkinson discusses the British and Chinese methods to select candidates. For a single vacancy, hundreds or thousands of applicants, everyone thinking he or she is most suited for the job, apply. How to select that one candidate?

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United States of America is by most counts the best place for college education. Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Ivy colleges in general attract the best youth not only in America but from around the world. Despite the high costs, interest is huge. For years, standardized tests called SAT and ACT were used to assess students. The scores in such tests contributed in a big way to enrolling or rejecting students.

Due to the pandemic, SAT and ACT are now waived or made optional. This is a revolutionary change.

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SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) is a major source of competition and student stress. Unfortunately, the SAT scores were highly correlated with wealth. The higher the family income, the higher the SAT score. Well-off families use private test-prep courses and tutors. Places like Manhattan have tutors charging $1000 per hour for one-to-one tutoring. As the competition for college admissions has intensified, tutoring and SAT preparation have become a billion-dollar industry.

A study suggests that if you come from a family with an annual income greater than $200,000, your chance of scoring 1400 (out of 1600) was 20%. If you came from a poor family (less than $20,000), your chance was 2%. At Yale and Princeton, only one student in fifty comes from a poor family.

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Wherever demand exceeds supply, educational institutions conceive clever ways of eliminating students. Mathematics is a good example. That subject is universally used not necessarily because it is useful in the course the student is planning to study, but to eliminate students from the competition. SAT served a similar function. It allowed a quantitative measure that could legitimately throw applications out.

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Now with the cancellation of standardized tests, suddenly thousands of students think they have a chance to get into the top universities. “The Common Application”, an online portal, reported that one million students applied ahead of January deadlines. Harvard has got 42% more applications this year. Cornell received 17,000 extra applications. Colgate in New York, a lesser-known college, got 103% more applications.

Small universities and colleges less famous have their mailboxes empty. Many of them have lost all additional sources of revenue such as food or athletic events. Programs are slashed and faculty laid off, creating a vicious cycle making the college less attractive.

Faculty and administrators at Cal Poly Pomona spent December calling students who had saved applications but not submitted. They also called students they had rejected in the past. Cal Poly Pomona had already lost $20 million in state funding.

Among the applicants, low-income and minority students show the largest declines. Pandemic has forced many of them to consider work first. Some of them lack online access.

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Higher education at the elite institutions was always a sort of scam. Harvard, Cambridge, or Indian IITs use cutthroat competitive exams to intake the cream, the brightest of the bright. The success of the student in academics and life can in large measure be attributed to this selection process rather than the academic institute. The virtuous cycle further enhances the reputation of the university.

With the disappearance of the standardised tests in the pandemic, it will be curious to see how the college admission process will be handled this year.

Ravi