The flight from bright: Dartmouth wants nice MBA students

The retreat from intelligence as a qualification for entrance into American universities continues. We have already seen the University of Chicago join the ranks of test-optional colleges and it seems that for many years Harvard has been discriminating against prospective Asian students who supposedly lack the qualities of grit, humour, sensitivity, kindness, courage, and leadership that are necessary to study physics or do research in economics.

There has been a lot of indignation about the implication that Harvard should actually think that Asians were uniquely lacking in humour and grit and so on.

But even if Asians were lacking in these qualities that is surely no reason to deny them admission to elite institutions if they have the ability to perform at the highest intellectual level. Sensitivity, kindness and a sense of humour etc are no doubt desirable but they are highly subjective, culture specific, difficult to operationalise and almost impossible to assess with any degree of validity. They also could have a disparate impact on racial, gender and ethnic groups.

Now Dartmouth College is going down the same path. What do you need to get into the Tuck School of Business?

"True to the school’s long-held reputation for being applicant-friendly and transparent in its admissions process, the new, simplified criteria comprise four attributes reflective of successful Tuck students: smart, nice, accomplished, and aware."

I doubt that Dartmouth will be the only place to admit students because they are nice, or good at pretending to be nice or able to afford niceness trainers. And how will niceness be assessed?

There will be an essay: "Tuck students are nice, and invest generously in one another's success. Share an example of how you have helped someone else succeed. (500 words)."

Referees will be asked: "Tuck student are nice. Please  comment on how the candidate interacts with others including when the interaction is difficult or challenging."

Soon no doubt we will hear demands for niceness of students to be included as in indicator in university rankings. There will be compulsory workshops on how to confront the nastiness within. Studies will show that niceness is an essential attribute for success in research, business, sport, war and journalism and that it is something in which ciswhitestraightmales, especially those not differently abled, are desperately deficient.

And we are likely to see articles wondering why Asian universities are mysteriously overtaking the West in anything based on cognitive skills.