IITs: The Selection-Effect Institutions

The archive of the articles Malcom Gladwell wrote for the New Yorker is full with his profound insights on various interesting topics. Recently, I was reading his article on the social logic of Ivy League admissions; the strategies they apply and used to apply, the kind of profile they seek and all that. I think the article is also relevant in the current discussion over the reservation in education issue, go ahead read it. But a certain part caught my attention and got me thinking about JEE & IITs. I quote:

Social scientists distinguish between what are known as treatment effects and selection effects. The Marine Corps, for instance, is largely a treatment-effect institution. It doesn't have an enormous admissions office grading applicants along four separate dimensions of toughness and intelligence. It's confident that the experience of undergoing Marine Corps basic training will turn you into a formidable soldier. A modeling agency, by contrast, is a selection-effect institution. You don't become beautiful by signing up with an agency. You get signed up by an agency because you're beautiful.

IITs are definitely selection-effect institutions. This is to say that almost all the students who make into IITs are excellent at problem solving & analytical thinking. The time spent in the IITs, though contributes a lot towards the holistic development of the individual, doesn't add that much extra value. Of course, the teachers are good & the facilities are better, but if say an entire batch of IIT would be swapped with the batch of students from say another lower ranked engineering institute, would that affect the bigger picture? I would like to say here that success (the way we define it in the materialistic sense) depends on a lot more than mere ability. You need to apply yourself, persist in tough times & keep on proving yourself again-n-again. So, would that make the original IITians less successful? I'd dare say no. Now, is it the IIT brand name which makes the students, or vice-versa? What makes the IIT brand? The placements, or the quality of students, or the rigorous academic schedule of four years?

In my opinion, its the JEE exam. It makes sure that only the students with great IQ make it into IITs (of course, it isn't exhaustive). This fact is reflected in various other facts, the average GRE & GMAT scores (at least in the analytical section) are much higher in IIT as compared to other colleges. IITians do relatively well at exams like CAT where your analytical abilities are put to test. Recently, most of the software companies & lately, financial firms too, go to various IIT campuses and pick up coders/number crunchers for their work, irrespective of the branch the student studied in IIT. Of course, the coursework at IITs doesn't inculcate the required abilities in the students; they came in with them. I remember, during my very early days at IIT Bombay, the dean once addressed us "freshies". Amidst all the gyaan, he told us that its the five pointers, who go ahead to become millionaires. Of course some of us took this as a cue and went ahead to bask in the notion that they've just got to get a 5 to become a millionaire, but that's not the point. The point is, even the students who constitute the lower half of the class are observed to do very well later on in their lives, enjoy success. Doesn't that say that the contribution of IITs (as in the learning inside the classrooms) in making them what they went ahead to become, was not much? Of course, bad grades mean those students did not apply themselves and have a tendency to lose the focus (if we assume the focus should be on academics).

So what would happen if this quality gets diluted, by let's say, 50% reservation? That would mean that half of the class is made up of the students who didn't do as well in the JEE as the other half. Roughly, it can be said that this would mean that their analytical skills are not at par with their general category colleagues (I say roughly, because I'm seen many exceptions. But in the end, that's what they are, exceptions). It might kill the brand in the longer run, the companies wouldn't get what they pay for and thus would shun IITs. But another outcome, which seems more likely to me, can be a fractured student society at IITs. Since its mandatory to declare that they are from quota at the time of placement, if would divide the placement scenario in two tiers. Different for general quota & reserved quota students. There are only about 10% of students from the SC/ST quota in the IITs, so no such phenomena is observed and they too are benefited from the IIT brandname. But if their percentage gets something like 50%, it might actually affect their chances adversely.

What's the solution for that? Reservation in private sector? To cover up their incompetence? To me it looks as if the government is standing with its back to the Sun. Instead of going in this direction, they should try and provide better education & better access to the primary & secondary educational institutes. If equal opportunities are provided at that level, I don't have any doubt that it will reflect at the tertiary educational level.

Sadly, the logical things almost never fetch the votes.