Ireland's big school secret: how a year off-curriculum changes teenage lives

> What he really wanted to close was the cultural gap between rich and poor

This sounds great!

> Then there is the financial aspect of TY: some parents just can’t afford it.

oh for fuck's sake

Yep! Good extracurriculars are expensive.

I remember taking part in Debate, MUN, XC, DECA, Wrestling, Quiz Bowl, Volunteering (NHS/CSF), and a bunch of Olympiads in HS and there was always a cost associated with participating (either a fee or the need to travel to the place hosting the EC).

Unsurprisingly, this meant ECs would skew upper middle class and upper class. Sadly, these same ECs are also blockers for college admissions.

I might get hate for this on HN, but this is why I support unweighted GPA, relative class ranking, and SAT/ACT for college admissions - sort of like what the UCs do. It's the least bad option out of the other options. Alternatively, going open entry with university admissions and then ramping up the difficulty with weedout classes is a good option as well.

Open entry would change a lot of things - lots of schools and rankings use drop out rate as a proxy for how useful attending there is, because of the assumption that if the dropout rate is higher, there's a worse education. It would at least upend the old saying about the hardest part about some colleges is getting in.

I agree with the SAT/ACT part - they pushed "holistic review" during Covid but ultimately SAT prep is way lower barrier (Khan Academy) than gobs of ECs.

  unweighted GPA, relative class ranking, and SAT/ACT for college admissions - sort of like what the UCs do

UC admissions decisions don't use SAT or ACT scores.

Relative class ranking is a poor measure for students who gained entry (by merit) to a selective high school.

Like if you do well in middle school and get into Lowell by the skin of your teeth, should you be penalized for being in the bottom 10%?

> UC admissions decisions don't use SAT or ACT scores.

Ope. I forgot that changed after COVID.

Pre-COVID SAT/ACT was required.

> Like if you do well in middle school and get into Lowell by the skin of your teeth, should you be penalized for being in the bottom 10%?

Someone is always going to be penalized no matter what. Most schools in California as well as nationally are not specialized or gatekept via entrance exams like Lowell was.

Open admission is an interesting way to do things. I spent a bit of time in Belgium where the main universities will accept anyone who has a high-school level education. The first year dropout rate can be 70% in some courses. This system seemed to be very well loved by Belgians.

https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/eag_highlights-2010-...

Notably the US has the lowest dropout rate, so obviously they are pre-filtering students hard. That necessarily means that there are lots of people who /could/ have succeeded but were excluded at the admissions stage. The degree to which that's the right choice probably depends on whether you think doing a year of university and then leaving is a huge waste, a horrible failure, or a worthwhile experiment.

(The unique economics of US universities obviously interact with this calculus in pretty major ways.)

  Most schools in California as well as nationally are not specialized or gatekept via entrance exams like Lowell was.

Right, but 'school' is not the relevant unit. 'Student' is the relevant unit.

Imagine the top 10% of middle school students in SF go to Lowell. Half of those will be in the bottom half of the graduating class.

So 5% of students in SF (half of the best 10%) might not get into their UC of choice, just because they managed to get into Lowell.

That's a lot of students' futures we're talking about. Why penalize half of the best students in SF?

It's an extra year of your kids at home, and potentially trips abroad. We couldn't afford the trip to France during my TY, so I skipped the trip, but did TY. While this was the '90s and my parents didn't earn enough to pay income tax, they were able to afford it for both myself and my sister, and I don't think they regret it for either of us.

That's not really how TY works in Ireland. It's about broadening horizons, not "extracurriculars".

Third level admissions have been done via a points system based on your top six Leaving Certificate (final second level exam) results for decades. It's an impersonal system, but at least fairer than most.