So Much Love, So Few Spots

BalletGirl
Sun, 29 Mar 2009 17:18:34 +0000

Verbal,

You represent my view as “the inherit (sic) differences that colleges have in campus environment, faculty preferences, and geography is (sic) irrelevant.”

I do not hold this perspective. I do believe, as Schwartz says, that:

‘High school seniors trying to get into the best college are on a fool’s errand. Chance factors (eg., ones first year roommate or Bio 101 teacher) will have a bigger effect on success and failure – satisfaction and disappointment – than the tiny differences among schools that are within the range of acceptability. Decision scientists Detlof von Winterfeldt and Ward Edwards wrote many years ago about “the principle of the flat maximum,” to describe situations in which random variation or measurement error was larger than the differences among the things being measured. It’s a pretty good bet that when it comes to differences among highly selective institutions, high school seniors are operating in the region of a “flat maximum.”’

Of course there are differences among the most selective colleges, they just have a much smaller impact than the overwrought (and emotionally over-invested) among us would suggest.