[SERIOUS] How do we fix the College Admissions Process? A short list

[squatz1]

1. Administer entrance exams to each school and each program.  Accept only the top 100 students per program. Offer full scholarships to the top 10 students in each program.  

2. Eliminate non-academic scholarships.

3. Eliminate all other bullshit/noise: recommendation letters, volunteer work letters, high-school averages, essays, participation in sports and other hobbies, racial and social profiles, etc.

Good ideas.  All leaning towards what American Post-Grad school is like today.

Eh -- I do think there is immense value in a school seeing your essay (just in a different way then it is done now) and participating in sports / other hobbies as it does show what kinds of interests you have. Volunteering would fit into the same sort of thing.


It would also make sense for colleges to have the school verify that all of these are actually being done -- you wouldn't want someone saying on their application that they're the president of all these different clubs without actually doing such and only being admitted to a college because he got the leg up from these.

Add an essay section on the entrance exam if you want to test one's writing skills.

Asking applicants for an essay just adds one more expense for the parents.  Most undergrad applicants have prepping companies preparing their applications.  So if you ask for an essay, parents will just spend more money to get a professional essay prepared for their precious ones.

Real-time, in-person testing is the only way to go.  Include an oral exam to test speaking skills if your program requires it.

Properly designed entrance exams (that very few applicants can complete in time) will allow you to select the best of the best.  

That way the university resources will be used for their intended purpose.

PS. SATs are a joke.  It is like checking if someone has a pulse.

The SAT / Act does have a writing section, it's just not about you and most colleges don't really require it because they have their own writing sections. I'd rather have the common app or someone along those lines administer essays for you college, though the prompt would change often and there wouldn't be much guidance. Becuase the current system just promoted people using tutors to help write things.

SAT/ACT is just learning how to take a test like anything else. A few thousand dollars in tutors could easily help ya out there, that's how the upper middle class / rich kids do it.

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[TECSHARE]

The SAT / Act does have a writing section, it's just not about you and most colleges don't really require it because they have their own writing sections. I'd rather have the common app or someone along those lines administer essays for you college, though the prompt would change often and there wouldn't be much guidance. Becuase the current system just promoted people using tutors to help write things.

SAT/ACT is just learning how to take a test like anything else. A few thousand dollars in tutors could easily help ya out there, that's how the upper middle class / rich kids do it.

Any multiple choice tests are trash. Once you learn a handful of process of elimination techniques to increase your odds of a correct answer, you can literally take any test with zero knowledge of the subject matter and score an A or a B.

[TwitchySeal]

Any multiple choice tests are trash. Once you learn a handful of process of elimination techniques to increase your odds of a correct answer, you can literally take any test with zero knowledge of the subject matter and score an A or a B.

Sounds like you've never taken the MCAT.  Or LSAT.  Or GMAT.  Or GRE.

It's not about getting an A or B.  It's about being smarter and more prepared than everyone else taking the same test.

[TECSHARE]

Any multiple choice tests are trash. Once you learn a handful of process of elimination techniques to increase your odds of a correct answer, you can literally take any test with zero knowledge of the subject matter and score an A or a B.

Sounds like you've never taken the MCAT.  Or LSAT.  Or GMAT.  Or GRE.

It's not about getting an A or B.  It's about being smarter and more prepared than everyone else taking the same test.

Sounds like you are being a passive aggressive instigator as usual. No one is talking about the MCAT.  Or LSAT.  Or GMAT.  Or GRE. I am aware they don't grade SAT's and other undergraduate level standardized tests with A's and B's. Of course you can't pass up an opportunity to point out something obvious when you can stroke yourself off in public and instigate unnecessary conflict, then pretend to be the victim and take a horribly fake dive like you are at a soccer game to signal to everyone how much of a meanie I am.

[iamsheikhadil]

I'm not thorough with the college system that exists in US, but I would definitely say that it's in a much better place than in my country (India) and China and some Asian countries has, which is totally based on marks, mugging up stuffs for exams and syllabus with no focus on real learning.

However, I think that one thing comes at the expense of others.

If we want to eliminate entrance exams like SATs because as you said, these aren't truly the real measure of a student's intelligence, wouldn't that lead to more nepotism and corrpution, because in the absence of an entrance test, corrupt ways would only exist for admission.

It's kinda true that kids of wealthy people can get better tuitions and stuffs to perform in the exams, it's still better than to completely eliminate the entrance exams and just taking away the slim chances kids of poorer families might get because of their high merit which they might show in the entrances and will open door towards admission based on fully wealth of parents.

However, the government can to improve fairness in the exam might provide free education programs for the entrance exams to the financially disabled kids to give them a better chance, instead of throwing away billions of dollars in name of wars and shits.

[CharlesRembert]

 I am sick of college admissions officers holding themselves out to be noble.  They have a very difficult job.  Most of them face competing pressures to admit full pay students do my essay who have high SAT scores who might also be athletes or the children of influential people.  There aren't enough to go around.  Some colleges even care - a little - about racial and socioeconomic diversity.