Instead, Penn should set a standardized test score floor and then randomly choose its admittees from the pool of applicants meeting that requirement. That’s it; that’s the application process. Setting a floor helps make sure the matriculating class has the requisite cognitive ability to succeed but otherwise limits concerns about ideology being privileged over academic merit. Random selection (as opposed to just taking the highest test scores) recognizes that standardized tests may be too blunt to make fine distinctions among students and generates a campus population that approximates the population of smart young adults along many more dimensions than we currently consider.
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