I’m not sure, but I feel like the majority of other large countries managed to solve this problem without that much fuss (gaokao, IIT-JEEs, etc, all seem to have higher skill ceilings). That said, they tend to measure knowledge more than raw intellect, which is maybe bad from an EA perspective since it forces hyperoptimization on established paradigms.
I don’t have anything approaching a clear sense of how sensitive & specific the gaokao, IIT-JEEs, etc. are at detecting extraordinary intellect, but I will say that, yeah, I have not heard good things about the incentives that those exams create for students seeking admission to university. Even in places like France, where access to higher education is much less competitive (and much less high-stakes) than in China or India, the baccalauréat seems like it distorts students’ incentives in pretty unproductive directions. Whether or not that makes it worse than the current system in the U.S., I don’t know.
I’m not sure, but I feel like the majority of other large countries managed to solve this problem without that much fuss (gaokao, IIT-JEEs, etc, all seem to have higher skill ceilings). That said, they tend to measure knowledge more than raw intellect, which is maybe bad from an EA perspective since it forces hyperoptimization on established paradigms.
I don’t have anything approaching a clear sense of how sensitive & specific the gaokao, IIT-JEEs, etc. are at detecting extraordinary intellect, but I will say that, yeah, I have not heard good things about the incentives that those exams create for students seeking admission to university. Even in places like France, where access to higher education is much less competitive (and much less high-stakes) than in China or India, the baccalauréat seems like it distorts students’ incentives in pretty unproductive directions. Whether or not that makes it worse than the current system in the U.S., I don’t know.