Liberal Forum

Several years ago, I read an article about eliminating people from the admissions process as much as possible by implementing a point system and awarding the various types of admission to those with the highest points. Things included for high school graduates were 5 points for top 5% of class, 4 points for top 10% on down to no points for bottom 50%. A point was awarded for National Merits Scholars, 1 point for each extracurricular activity, etc. Since the points would also be used for awarded institution controlled general financial aid, points were awarded based on the financial situation of the family, with lower income families getting more points than wealthy. There were several other things that would give points, including one point for each generation of the immediate family that attended the institution. Names would not be associated with the points because names can give away race and if 15 applicants were tied in points and only 10 spots remained, geography would be considered...but the four regions were the time zones so they wouldn't know if someone in the East region was from Maine or Georgia. The key point was...every race got the same number of points...ZERO.

I have to admit, that (or a very similar system) seems to be the only way to eliminate work arounds and bias.