>The goal of all students is to pass the test so that they can make it into Seoul University so that Samsung will hire them. The bottleneck is the test. Life afterwards is easy.

That sounds quite similar to the JEE tbh. Won't you say that a significant cause of the stress is the cultural expectation that all parents have that their should be able to get into Seoul University and eventually a job at Samsung?

In India there is a good reason for this mindset, because we do not have many good universities and base salaries are very low and of course there is not much of a social security net. I wonder what causes a similar mindset in a developed country like South Korea.

> Every Einstein whose passion is in Machine Learning and spends all of his time on that topic will fail this test.

Any person who does not have a basic understanding of his background and social situation is not an Einstein.

Regardless, that is a very strange example indeed. I really don't understand what kind of a person has the background and social circle that enables him to do top quality research in a highly specialized field of engineering (that also requires considerable funds to run any sort of experiments) at the age of 17 but also doesn't have the connections that will help him get into a decent university.

While I largely agree with your argument, I'm curious if you have a solution in mind that could work in the Indian context.

Use the start-up model whenever possible.

1. Take as many bets as you can.

2. Pay a great deal of attention to those bets. Guide them.

3. As soon as you know the bet failed, let it fail.

Entrance exams are an anti-pattern. They commit to much to early. This means they have to be correct, so they get more strict. This squeezes out exactly who they were hoping to find. Same problem with interviews. Same problem everywhere.

I'm not sure I follow how this would work for students applying for college. In the specific example of the JEE, you have ~ 13K really prestigious seats that ~ 2.2 Million students are competing for, with about ~ 50K seats of decreasing desirability up for grabs. Similarly for the top medical colleges, ~ 340K applicants are competing for ~ 1200 seats. More than half of those seats are reserved for students from traditionally marginalized & oppressed communities burdened with severe economic & societal hardships. I do not understand how a startup model helps in this scenario; ie, college admissions where desirable seats are a severely scarce resource.

You're still thinking of it in one big sort. That's the centralized method. That relies on metrics.

You want several gradual sorts from the bottom up where each sortation relies on personal accountability between the different teachers and administrations. It would probably look much closer to the European football leagues. You would have gradual promotions and relegations every year.

I admit I'm quite baffled by your recommendation.

Is there an example where this system is employed for the purpose of college admissions?

> each sortation relies on personal accountability between the different teachers and administrations

How would such a system actually work? As an illustrative example, the year I graduated High School I was one among about ~ 300K graduating students in my province. There were only ~ 35K college seats across all undergraduate courses (including Women's Colleges, Evening Colleges, etc) in my province up for grabs. If I was interested in medicine, there were ~ 400 seats, of which ~ 150 are female only. How would 'personal accountability' between teachers & administrations work in this scenario? I still fail to grasp how you suggest one kid should go to college vs another. School grades? I had the highest grades in the science exam nationwide, but so did 10 other kids just in my school. All of us could have gotten glowing letters of recommendation from our teachers, and I think that's a terribly subjective way to evaluate large numbers of people.

If your football league analogy is meant to suggest that students should move into and between colleges based on performance, that still doesn't resolve how one gets into a college in the first place without an exam. Even with continual evaluation at the school level, you're still left with many more eligible students (100X) than you have capacity for.

You can not rely on metrics. A letter of recommendation from someone you have never met is just another metric. You keep thinking of this from the top down perspective. India might have such scale that perhaps nothing else is possible. But the more scarce the resources are, the more important that they are used properly.

By 3rd grade you would be filtered into the best class in your city. By the 9th grade you would be filtered into the top province level school. By college, you would be filtered into the position that you already earned. In America we call this system the magnet schools. All I am suggesting is to make this more fluid, and with digital schools coming to be as a result of CO-VID, is the perfect time to experiment with such a system.

More importantly than attempting to fix the Indian education system is what can you do to help against metricification. Do not rely on others scores. If you are hiring and get a resume from someone who did not go to a prestigious school, do not throw it away without looking. People are more than a number. The best often do not look like the best.