What If College Admissions Were Completely Random? #college #admissions #debate

17 Apr 2026 · 1 min

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In this monologue, TJ Walker argues that any college receiving federal funds should allocate at least 10% of its incoming class to a pure random lottery among applicants, eliminating legacy preferences, holistic criteria, and other opaque selection factors. He critiques current admissions practices—such as legacy admissions, subjective holistic assessments, and extracurricular biases—as arbitrary and potentially unfair. Walker proposes that the performance of lottery-admitted students be tracked over a decade to compare outcomes with those selected by traditional methods, hypothesizing that lottery students would perform comparably. The overall aim is to increase fairness, transparency, and evidence‑based evaluation of admissions policies.

Chapters

Any college that takes federal money, federal research support, or participates in federal student aid systems should have to reserve— by the way, that's everybody— they should have to reserve at least 10% of each incoming class for a pure random lottery among applicants. No legacy choreography, no mysterious holistic incense, no dean squinting at an oboe recital, summer in Provence, and a $20,000 fencing hobby. Trying to detect leadership, just a lottery, then track the outcomes 10 years later. My guess, and I could be wrong, a whole lot of these lottery kids would do just as well as the ones chosen by the current priesthood of prestige. Ultimis.