Abandoning the Combine, By Malcolm Gladwell

For what it’s worth, here’s my opinion about admissions standards (you can think of this as a response to Gladwell’s bit on Law School admission if you like).

I think that there is a certain minimum level of readiness below which students will struggle as undergraduates (or in any sort of graduate school). Beyond that, I don’t think that there is as much difference between those who barely exceed that minimum level (whatever that is) and those who greatly exceed it. It is true that there is some degree to which tests like the SAT or LSAT measure intelligence, and it is true that there is a degree to which those tests measure (past) motivation to learn, but they also measure (indirectly but strongly) things like socioeconomic background and the quality of the schools (and teachers) that the students have encountered.

A serious problem in the US is that whites tend to be wealthier and have better teachers in their K-12 schools. How can we address this problem WITHOUT using race as a condition for admission? While not a complete solution, I have a suggestion that would help address the issue.

Step 1 (the hard step): Determine the minimum level of readiness for a university education and a way to measure it. (This is the hard part.) (Really.) (Note that this level will likely be different at different schools with differing expectations.)

Step 2 (the easy step): Place all students who apply to the school and meet the minimum requirements into a lottery and select the subset who will be accepted randomly. This will NOT result in accepting only the cream (as measured by the standards being used) of those who applied, but (if step 1 was done correctly) should not negatively impact the education (and careers) of any who are accepted. It SHOULD result in granting wider access to education to a wider cross-section of society (but – again if step 1 is done correctly – all who are accepted will be READY for a university education).

My guess is that many (most) of those reading my two-step plan will suggest that this doesn’t address AT ALL the concerns raised by Gladwell in his talk. After all, he pointed out that the study at the University of Michigan showed that those admitted to the Law School with higher standards did no better in the legal profession than those admitted under lower standards. The thing to note is that those admitted with lower standards were not admitted without standards! The school essentially said “these lower standards will not bring us the best prepared students, but they’re still rigorous enough standards to allow for admission of students who will succeed in our program.” The MYTH is that those coming in with the most readiness to succeed will have the most successful careers when they leave. The FACT is that all of the students who are accepted have access to the SAME education. If it is the education in LAW SCHOOL that prepares people to be lawyers, we should expect that all of these students have (at least roughly) equal likelihood of success in their careers.

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Disclaimer for the next bit (well for the above too I suppose): I am a university mathematics professor.

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I disagree a little bit with what Gladwell implied in his first bit about teachers. I think that there is a minimum level of competence in the subject area that we should require of teachers (he seemed to imply that this wasn’t AT ALL important .. though I doubt he’d really go that far). But, beyond that, he’s absolutely right. It is not easy to know who will be a good teacher. Certainly knowledge and competence in the subject area is a MINIMUM requirement, but it doesn’t capture whether the person will be able to communicate that knowledge to the students. I agree too that by overly narrowing those that we admit into the teaching profession, we will eliminate some of those with the greatest potential to be good teachers. (We also eliminate some of those with the greatest potential to be good teachers by the amount of pay we give teachers, but that’s an entirely different topic.)