Many colleges, the “elite” ones and others, have big staffs of admissions officers who purport to curate wonderful classes of students who have all the right characteristics. But how can those officers learn much about various applicants when the kids are still in high school?

In today’s Martin Center article, Jenna Robinson looks at the admissions process at UNC. She writes:

In addition to “curiosity” and “kindness,” Carolina also seeks students who demonstrate “intellect,” “talent,” “creativity,” “leadership,” “courage,” “honesty,” “perseverance,” “perspective,” and (of course) “diversity.”

None of that can be measured or compared. So, what should students emphasize in their application essays? The subjectivity of this encourages students to puff and fake.

Why not try objectivity? Robinson continues: “The solution for this problem is to increase objectivity in the admissions process. One way to do so, which the Martin Center has covered at length, is to reinstate the standardized-testing requirement for all undergraduate students. Doing so would give admissions readers an additional objective, apples-to-apples metric by which to compare students.”

Yes, and the school would not need nearly so many people working in applications.