How Do You Get Into College??
From the moment I arrived at Ithaca last August, I entered a point of no return- my status as a freshman at Cornell was nonrefundable and I finally felt closure from the previous chapter of my life, one characterized by college admissions stress, stress-induced anxiety, and stress-induced peer pressure. I was quickly able to adjust to my life at Cornell, and soon, my senior year “mid-life crisis” was long forgotten. However, when March rolled around last Spring and excited Facebook posts and competitive tension popped up on my newsfeed, I was once again reminded of the past four years, primarily defined by my parents comparing my SAT/ACT scores with other parents’ kids, joining extracurriculars to show colleges how “well-rounded and unique” I was, and begging that one senior who got into an Ivy League school to pass down his words of wisdom. Looking back, I started to wonder if all of this craziness was worthwhile in the long run.
College admissions has been one of the most variable processes I have encountered; there are simply too many choices and too many things at stake when determining a plan to get into college. In his blog post, “The prisoner’s dilemma in college admission”, David Ha of Brown University examines the often counterintuitive effects of the decisions that high school students make. He characterizes the admissions process as a prisoner’s dilemma, which, in economic theory, describes a situation where two individuals must make choose between two choices that affect one another. Specifically, the “dilemma” refers to the fact that both individuals end up worse off if they each choose the option that benefits them the most individually.
Ha gives an example of this situation in college admissions: taking the SATs. If two students are both given the choice of either studying or not studying for the SATs. Logically, it makes sense for both students, if they want to improve their chances of admission, to spend time to study for the SATs. However, if they both choose to study, the relative situation remains constant because neither is outcompeting the other, and the two are actually worse off, since they have spent their time and/or money for nothing. This example can be applied to any form of extracurriculars or standardized testing, where if more than one individual all choose to participate in a particular activity, the relative worth of the activity is lowered, and all are worse off.
Ha extends his argument by bringing to light a form of prisoner’s dilemma that is applicable to both college and high school students: Should students request access to their admission files? It seems intuitive to think “why not?”, as access to these files could probably improve transparency and allow future applicants to absorb these insights. However, in terms of game theory and the prisoner’s dilemma, this notion is actually rather harmful for two reasons.
1) If everyone has access to admissions information, then nobody have an advantage, and everyone is worse off in the process.
2) Applicants may be inclined to become involved with certain activities that were pursued by admitted students, which can be misleading and diversity-minimizing.
Essentially, Ha’s point in comparing college admissions to prisoner’s dilemma is to undermine some traditional tips on getting into college by proving that by economic theory, those tips are not useful and can be detrimental. In terms of game theory and prisoner’s dilemma, if college applicants made their own unique decisions, rather than the rumored “best” decisions, they would probably be more successful in getting into college, because they will be able to stand out in their own way, while respecting the different ways in which other applicants stand out.
Ha’s analysis of prisoner’s dilemma in terms of admission processes offers a distinct way of looking at “college advice”. If you are ever faced with a crowd of stressed and anxious high schoolers asking you how you got into an Ivy-League school, perhaps try a different approach at traditional advice. Tell them the key to success is to “reach Nash Equilibrium”. 🙂
Source: http://www.browndailyherald.com/2015/03/30/ha-18-the-prisoners-dilemma-in-college-admission/