Using Game Theory to Win the College Application Process
https://www.vox.com/2015/4/7/8355247/college-admissions-terrible-preferences
There’s no doubt that for most high school students, there is one overarching cloud looming over them: the college application process. Up to that point in their lives, most of what they have done is to bolster their college application to increase their chances of getting into their dream college. The problem, however, arises when people apply to their dream school and a couple of other “reach” schools and maybe a handful of schools that they think they can get into and a sprinkling of “safety” schools in case they don’t get in anywhere else and … the list goes on. This mindset is exactly why the college admissions process is broken. Like the article above mentions, every years students see that admissions rates decrease from the previous year, prompting them to apply to more schools out of fear of not getting accepted anywhere. Then, once they receive their acceptances, they must choose where they truly want to go out of their entirely large list.
Brand name, selective colleges are definitely hard to get into, but it doesn’t justify the snowballing problem (especially considering that I and many of my friends have completely forgotten about the college application process mere months after it occurs). I think there is an unnecessarily stressful and complex process of “I want to go to this school, but they might not want me, so I need to apply to x number of other schools in case” that can perhaps be solved with game theory.
In class, we have talked about market matching and game theory principles. The article above mentions the possibility of using game theory in a way similar to medical students’ residency programs where students rank the residency programs that they apply to and residency programs do the same. That way students will be placed into their top program that also wants them. While this may be complicated to implement on such a large scale considering that there are far less medical students and residency programs compared to high school seniors and colleges, this would definitely help reduce complications later down the line once acceptances are released. By combining preference signaling with some way to reduce the average number of schools students to apply to, we might be able to save the college admissions process before it spirals into complete chaos.