Making sense of college admissions

The University of Washington has accepted too many students. Students have begun to send acceptance deposits to two or more colleges. An entry from a high school college counselor list serve said it all: "I have a student into 2 Ivy's and waitlisted at GW and Wash U. I fully agree, to hedge their bets, they need to send out more applications than ever before, as the 'sure bets' are all gone."

Applying to 12 or more colleges is common. Applications to top-tier institutions have grown by 30 percent in the past five years. Students, parents and guidance counselors eager to find the best education are shot-gunning the college admissions process. Lost within the growing chaos is the ability to optimize the match or fit between students and colleges.

For students, the increase in the number of applications is due to recognition that admissions officers can do little to discern the best match among the three to five qualified applications for every spot. Safety comes in numbers. The days of applying to two stretch schools, two likely and two safety schools are gone. Colleges, defining success as a low acceptance rate, foster such behavior. From the perspective of a college dean of admissions proudly sitting on 15,000 applications for a class of 1,000, it may not seem like a problem -- but it is. Did they find the best match for the students?

Do all selection systems use the free-market approach so wildly pursued by U.S. colleges as they advertise with glossy brochures, fancy Web sites and kowtow to the tyranny of numbers of applications, acceptance rates, SAT statistics and ranking in the US News & World Report sweepstakes. The answer is no.

In another high-stakes selection process, matching medical school graduates with residency programs, an algorithm called the "Stable Marriage Algorithm" is used. That program optimally matches the graduating physician's and training program's preferences.

Under that system, in February, the graduating physician ranks all training program choices in order of preference. Training programs also rank all applicants. The beauty of the algorithm is that there is no penalty for ranking a stretch program or stretch applicant highly. Through an iterative process, applicants and training programs reach a stable situation where each has optimized their match according to preference. Results are posted on the Web three weeks later.

Important factors such as salary level or, for college applicants, financial aid, can be incorporated into the process. In truth, it is not a new idea for college admissions but one debated over the years. Ranking could be done in early April with a May 1 posting of results. The goal is simple: Optimize the match by introducing a means to rank preference.

Could such a change occur? Yes, but it requires buy-in from the community of students, parents and guidance counselors. The elite selective colleges need to step forward and lead the process. Competitive colleges are now aggressively recruiting admitted students known as "specs" or "prospies" as they try to minimize use of waitlists, which are nothing more than a poor disorganized approach to doing what the "Stable Marriage Algorithm" does well.

Colleges have an obligation to put the interests of students first. As one who has used this algorithm to select public schools for my children and, many years ago, my internship, I can speak to the benefits of a mutually excellent match. Now is the time to make better sense in the college admissions process.

Scott Barnhart, M.D., is medical director of Harborview Medical Center and a UW professor. His daughter and son recently applied successfully to college.

Soundoff (Read 1 comment)
Tell us what's on your mind.

Add P-I Opinion headlines to