[Leftcoast]

Aren't you assuming that "smart kids from poor neighborhoods and coming out of bad schools" have bad GPAs?  Why would you make that assumption?  - Teejers

No, but we ARE questioning how Universities will differentiate between a horde of undifferentiated GPAs.  I think they'll choose the high GPAs from "better" schools, offering more AP classes, with better extra-curriculars.   And I KNOW that will factor against many, many students from poorer schools.  (Less AP opportunities, fewer kids sent to class-A schools, more likely to have an after school job than Model UN, etc).

What do you think they'll use? Is your choice really harder to game than an objective college board test?

It's popular to cast stones at standardized testing and has been for 50 years.  But throwing away an objective standard and replacing it with a bunch of subjective weighting and expecting more diverese results is .... counter-intuitive.  Heck we might as well take everyone above a 3.7GPA and throw them into a lottery.  You'd probably get a more diverse selection and it would have the advantage of being harder to game.

Beware the unintended consequences.

[Leftcoast]

Aren't you assuming that "smart kids from poor neighborhoods and coming out of bad schools" have bad GPAs?  Why would you make that assumption?  - Teejers

No, but we ARE questioning how Universities will differentiate between a horde of undifferentiated GPAs.  I think they'll choose the high GPAs from "better" schools, offering more AP classes, with better extra-curriculars.   And I KNOW that will factor against many, many students from poorer schools.  (Less AP opportunities, fewer kids sent to class-A schools, more likely to have an after school job than Model UN, etc).

What do you think they'll use? Is your choice really harder to game than an objective college board test?

It's popular to cast stones at standardized testing and has been for 50 years.  But throwing away an objective standard and replacing it with a bunch of subjective weighting and expecting more diverese results is .... counter-intuitive.  Heck we might as well take everyone above a 3.7GPA and throw them into a lottery.  You'd probably get a more diverse selection and it would have the advantage of being harder to game.

Beware the unintended consequences.