Read on Twitter
1/ For my UK tweeps this AM, I want to walk everyone through the Canadian* system of university admissions, just to show you how low-stakes this process can actually be.
*most of Canada, there are exceptions, wouldn& #39;t be Canada without exceptions
*most of Canada, there are exceptions, wouldn& #39;t be Canada without exceptions
2/ Alberta apart, we don& #39;t do final exams (and even there they& #39;re not a huge deal). Assessment is done the same way it is throughout the K-12 system: by a series of regular assessment (assignments, tests, projects) in a variety of formats, graded according to a rubric.
3/ As a result, every student has an assessed grade in at least a half-dozen subjects for each year of secondary. This is what is submitted to universities for admissions. Basically, it& #39;s the US system without the SAT/ACT.
4/ Applications are due January-March (depends on province). So admission decisions are made based on grades in year 11 and half of year 12. Crazy, right? And - get this - no one thinks that& #39;s unfair, because in fact that& #39;s a pretty good proxy for final grades
5/ But wait, what about the reliability of the results? Wouldn& #39;t this encourage grade inflation? No, because universities aren& #39;t stupid. They know which schools produce successful students & which don& #39;t, so they interpret school-assigned grades on a curve http://higheredstrategy.com/the-system-works/">https://higheredstrategy.com/the-syste...
6/ This would probably cause riots in England. But they don& #39;t in Canada because i) the system is seen as widely fair and ii) there aren& #39;t that many university courses that are so prestigious that people aren& #39;t satisfied with a close substitute. (Number is >0 but probably not >10)
7/ The secret is twofold: first of all, the institutional prestige hierarchy has a pretty gentle slope. Second, and probably more importantly - our most prestigious institutions are among our largest. McGill, Toronto and UBC collectively teach about 12% of nation& #39;s undergrads.
8/ Obvs these are not conditions which can easily be recreated elsewhere. And we didn& #39;t adopt these policies deliberately to keep down stratification (in fact, research Us are big because packing undergrads in like sardines is how they generate surpluses to do expensive research)
9/ The point is: other worlds are possible. You just need to face up to the damage caused by stratification and a particularly narrow version of meritocracy.
I think this is where I am supposed to reference Tomlinson, so I will.
/fin
I think this is where I am supposed to reference Tomlinson, so I will.
/fin
