Conversation Starters: "Getting In"

Monday

"Getting In"

Malcolm Gladwell's 10/05 New Yorker article discusses the advent of non-quantitative measures of merit in college admissions, specifically Harvard's groundbreaking use of interviews, letters of reference, and personal essays in the 1930s. According to Karabel's The Chosen, this practice was instituted to stem the influx of Jews onto campus. The measure was successful; with Harvard able to analyze the personal qualities and background of its candidates, it wasn't long before the number of Jews on campus dropped.

Despite its sordid purpose, these aspects of an applicant's file have obviously been institutionalized widely since then. And as it turns out, such a multifaceted application has been found to correlate with a much higher incidence of success later in life. (however that's measured!)

But speaking of success, Gladwell takes up the question of what exactly Harvard does to a person. Does the school make mere mortals great, or does it merely attract already-great people? The former is known as a "treatment effect", the effect that the marine corps has on its students, say. The latter is a "selection effect", as seen in modeling agencies (the agencies don't make you look 'good'; they select people who already do).

Until recently, Harvard was found to have a treatment effect on its students because, after college, those who were accepted outperformed those who were accepted to other top schools.The recent correction that Gladwell discusses is interesting: what those studies should have been comparing is the students accepted to Harvard who went to Harvard and those who were accepted but did not go. Controlling for the talent to be accepted, those students fare about the same in the real world. Harvard, then, is a school with a selection effect. Those who get in know how to succeed wherever they choose to end up.

Labels: admissions, education, gladwell