Harvard University graduate student 'offers ideas' on how to prioritize admission without adding extra points

Chau Thanh Vu - PhD student at Harvard University (Massachusetts, USA) frankly stated: "There are many reasons to choose a different form of priority than a crude, rigid and geographically leveling policy such as adding points. We cannot fix an injustice by creating a new injustice."

Below is the perspective of the Vietnamese guy Chau Thanh Vu, who won 8 full PhD scholarships in the US and is currently a PhD student at Harvard University.People's IntelligenceThe policy of giving priority points is causing a stir in public opinion in the country.

Chau Thanh Vu - The author of the article is currently a PhD student at Harvard University.

The university entrance exam is always a topic that consumes a lot of ink in the press every year. This year, the issue of score inflation has become a hot topic when many candidates with near-perfect scores still fail the university entrance exam. In addition, the fact that many candidates receive bonus points has caused the benchmark scores at some individual schools to be close to or exceed 30 points, making the question of “should bonus points be added?” a debate again.

This is a very difficult question to answer. That is because any policy that favors one group of candidates will disadvantage another group. If the purpose of the priority is not clearly defined, the policy can easily go astray.

I think point-based meritocracy is a wrong implementation of a good idea. It is true that there should be policies to support less qualified candidates, but there are many reasons to choose a form of meritocracy other than a policy that is crude, rigid, and geographically leveling like point-based meritocracy.

Adding bonus points to close the social gap. But which gap?

Before discussing bonus points, we must clarify why we need to prioritize some candidates in the admissions process.

The argument in favor of giving priority points is that it helps to narrow the gap between urban students and rural students and other priority groups. But what “gap” are we talking about?

There are two types of gaps that we need to distinguish clearly: the condition gap, and the outcome gap. The condition gap is the difference in learning conditions and access to knowledge. The outcome gap is the difference in test scores, which can come from differences in learning conditions, but can also be due to individual qualities and efforts.

I think the priority policy should be to narrow the “condition gap” rather than the “result gap”. More specifically, what needs to be done is to evaluate “if a less qualified candidate had the same learning opportunities as urban candidates, what would have been the result”, and if anyone thinks that the priority is to equalize the test scores to be fair, then that is a wrong thought.

After all, the test score is a number that contains many factors, and circumstances are just one. Contributing to the test results are the efforts of each individual. There are students in priority areas who do not try hard, and there are also students in Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi who try very hard. Adding points based on geographical location unintentionally negates the efforts of some students just because they were not born in the right place.

We cannot correct one injustice by creating a new one.

In addition to the basic reason mentioned above, there are two more reasons why we should replace the point system with a more suitable preferential policy.

First, the nature of the gap in conditions is very difficult to quantify. How many points is the lack of good teachers? How many points is having to climb 1km of mountain road to go to school?

Second, because the difficulty of the questions varies from year to year, the significance of 1 bonus point changes dramatically from year to year. In an exam with easy questions and no differentiation, the bonus point will have less significance; whereas in a difficult exam year, where candidates struggle with each problem to compete for 0.25 points, the bonus point has great significance.

Because these bonus points are determined in a very unscientific way, and the priority level changes every year, I believe that the bonus point system should soon be replaced with a more equitable but preferential method.

Select the option “Test, Select, Interview”

As an alternative, I propose to maintain the current high school exam without adding priority points. Instead, a relatively large number (e.g., about 200% of the enrollment target) will be accepted for interviews. Considerations for giving priority to candidates from provinces or from disadvantaged backgrounds will be considered in this interview round.

Although not perfect, this "Test, Select, Interview" method has the following advantages in my opinion:

The first,The first round of this option gives universities a choice. If adding priority points risks overwhelming better candidates who do not receive bonus points, this option ensures that after the first round of admission, there will be a number of candidates from both groups.

Interviewing 200% of the admission quota will help the first round score to be much lower than the normal admission score. The low first round score will ensure that even candidates from non-priority areas who have not received additional points can still be interviewed and considered.

Monday,With an interview score lower than the normal admission score, you can be more confident about eliminating potential candidates when only 0.25 - 1 point is missing. For example, if the normal admission score is 27, interviewing candidates with 25 points helps limit the accidental elimination of good candidates with 26.25 or 26.75 points just because of small mistakes.

Tuesday,One of the reasons why interviews are frowned upon is because of the large number of applicants. By looking at scores and only interviewing those who are good enough, the number of interviews and the workload on universities will be greatly reduced.

Wednesday, there are things that cannot be expressed on paper. Direct interviews will allow the school to more accurately assess the circumstances, efforts, passion, thinking, and way of thinking. If the interview is conducted correctly, the school can choose to accept students from priority areas who have passion and effort, instead of being forced to prioritize all candidates from priority areas.

According to Dantri