Discarding 50% of the entries unread would be a reasonable strategy
for managing an otherwise unmanageable load provided that a) all the
contestants knew in advance that this would happen, a) that 50% were
randomly selected, and b) the other 50% actually were read.
I've often thought that Oxbridge selection should proceed by drawing
of lots. Once you have the requisite A-levels, or whatever, your name
just goes in a big hat. This would have two useful consequences: a)
all those who went to Oxbridge would be fully aware that they were
there because of a combination of talent/hard work and pure luck. This
would greatly improve the moral and psychological health of the
undergraduate population - greater humility, fewer existential crises
about "why did they pick me? I'm not good enough! They've made a
terrible mistake, and when they find out my whole world will
collapse!".
Consequence b): none of the rejects would have anything to complain
about re: sneering dons, class bias and all of the rest of that crap.
Just bad luck - sorry and all that, if it really bothers you why not
get a job for a year and then try again? (We might apply some
statistical weighting to favour second-time applicants, in recognition
of the trouble they've gone to).
It would be interesting to see whether a random selection actually
resulted in a broader social mix, since if it did that would imply
that selection by interview really did favour those with a particular
sort of social background. (I doubt anybody would be very surprised if
that turned out to be true; but some people might be surprised at how
much, or how little, it turned out to be true). Another interesting
question is whether it would have a significant effect on the overall
level of ability of the undergraduate population - is selection by
interview really any better than random sampling when it comes to,
say, prediction of final grades?
Another scheme I've seen proposed, which is a really devilish hack, is
to allocate a fixed fraction of an Oxbridge place per pupil to every
school in the country, and let the schools themselves pick who to
send. Private schools would have exactly the same number of places per
thousand pupils as state schools (unless you want to be punitive and
award them only to state comprehensives). But here's the devilish bit.
Competition for those places in schools with a high percentage of
high-achieving pupils would be very tight. There would consequently be
an incentive for the parents of high-achieving pupils to send them to
schools with a lower percentage of high-achieving pupils overall, so
that they might have a better chance at getting one of those places.
The very ignoble motivations that currently cause the middle classes
to lobby, jostle, move house, pretend to be Anglicans etc. to get
their children into the "best" (by selfish middle class criteria)
schools, would cause them to sign up for the "worst" (ditto) schools
instead. Egalitarianism for selfish reasons - the only really
sustainable kind...
Unfortunately this only works if an Oxbridge place is still considered
highly desirable, which in turn depends on Oxbridge maintaining its
very highly privileged status, to the detriment (so it is said) of the
rest of the higher-education sector. Still, pending the inevitable
buyout of Oxbridge by DMU, I think it's worth a try.
Dominic
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