Word: select
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Klitgaard uses as a baseline the economist's notion that universities should select students to maximize the value added of the education an institution provides. Crudely put, universities want to select those students who, with the help of the education they offer, have the greatest potential for later-life contributions to society. There are, to be sure, a host of problems with this view--not least of all that it takes society's established reward structure as a given, Klitgaard says--but nevertheless it provides the basis for drawing up an admissions policy...
Klitgaard then proceeds to deal with the problems raised in attempts to meet whatever objectives are chosen for an admissions policy. The central problem is how universities can, with "incomplete and imperfect" information, select the best candidates to meet those objectives. Klitgaard utilizes the vast realm of literature on the various factors aiding prediction both of academic success in universities and of later-life success: grades, standardized tests, interviews, letters of recommendation, intelligence tests, and the like. He closes with a chapter on preferential admissions for minorities, the topic that inflamed the campus five years...
...general conclusion of these points--that universities will best achieve their objectives if they select the most academically able students (with proper allowance for the representation of groups)--goes against our general liberal intuitions. After all, what of the intuitively pleasing intangibles--like leadership, motivation, or simple effort--that such indicators presumably cannot measure? Yet Klitgaard presents a convincing argument against the widespread belief that such intangibles may be measured by such items as letters of recommendation, which in general are notoriously not candid and unhelpful to admissions committees...
...coached to do better on standardized tests--perhaps even to the tune of 100 points. Not withstanding the considerable doubt such findings cast on the notion of the SAT as objective measure of "aptitude," it is clear that the benefits of coaching are only available to a select few who can afford...
...danger exists, under Klitgaard's suggestions, that we may be tyrannized by excessive devotion to a flawed method of selection in order to select an elite class based on the wrong principles Klitgaard aptly quotes psychologis David McClelland on this point: the testing movement is in grave danger of perpetuating a mythological meritocracy in which none of the measures of merit bears a significant demonstrable validity with respect to any measures outside the charmed circle...