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I have a new proposal.
I think there should be an additional way to get into an elite college. You can still get in because you're an Olympic swimmer, or won an international math competition for high schoolers four years in a row, or because you're the daughter of a sitting U.S. President. But for mere mortals willing to put everything on the line...
I was thinking about an idea for Ivy League admissions reform: the ruling class and those that wind up hanging around them don't have to take much personal risk to get there. In ages past, until a few months into WWI, aristocrats were expected to take personal risk by going to war; many of the sons of aristocrats pulled strings to get sent to the trenches. War is more dangerous now than it was in 1900, and warmongering isn't exactly a good or necessary thing for the United States.
Therefore, I propose Admission of the Hock. Those with SATs over 1300 or ACTs over 27 who are in the top 15 percent of their high school class are eligible for the Hock. In early March, participants are parachuted onto a frozen lake in a boreal forest in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. They're allowed anything they can carry on their back except for firearms, maps, and communication devices. No rescue beacons, either. If they survive by making it back to civilization under their own power, they receive admission to an Ivy League school.
If you want something - if you truly, honestly believe in something - that means being willing to risk your life for it and to suffer for it. There's very little of that nowadays in America outside of the combat arms. The likes of Harvard and Yale and by extension the American aristocracy would thus be leavened by large numbers of people willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to ascend the class ladder. These people would know suffering and want as they had not in their sheltered childhoods. They would understand the whims of Mother Nature; they would know viscerally for the rest of their lives that the universe will not bend to their will.
We could have special diversity-based scholarships to Hock-prep schools and Hock-prep classes for the determined but poor individuals that we want to have a better chance at the Hock. After all, that Supreme Court decision only applied to college admissions; the Matthew Henson Hock Prep Program can offer scholarships how it likes.
TL;DR If you can do the work at Fancy Elite College and graduate, but you're not a rockstar, you can get dumped into the Alaskan wilderness in winter. Make it out alive and you're in. If you add diversity, maybe there's going to be some organization focused on preparing you for the rigors and trials of the Hock. Or you could simply take your chances; good luck.
The survivors will be very fit, very determined people.
This is the third time you have copy and pasted the exact same comment.
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Eh, the properly rich can game this too. You just have to make an agreement with Daddy to send out a massive search and rescue party consisting of dozens of different groups to save you (and only you, this bit is important) as soon as you are dropped. All you take with you is a ultra hi vis orange jacket which will light up and stick out from hundreds of meters away plus some LEDS so you can be seen at night (you can pass that off as a torch to whoever is checking to make sure you don't have forbidden items), some rope and enough food to last lets say 5 days. When the ordeal starts you just climb up your nearest tall tree (the rope helps with this), sit there and wait to be rescued.
We managed to find the remains of the submarine within a week searching over a much bigger volume which was in 3D too (rather than the 2D search here), if Daddy has sent enough manpower you might well be back home in time for tomorrow's dinner.
Although I suppose if you're that rich you can just buy your way in via the usual methods right now, and that's easier.
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I can't believe I'm saying this but I would watch the reality show version of this.
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good idea!
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I like this plan - also maybe guaranteed admission for top graduates who do military service. Your option seems more intense than military service though.
Sadly this likely opens up a ton of liability for the universities, so like many other good idea it will go into the dustbin because safetyism is the silent ruler of our day.
P.S. - any reason you have such a thing for the Alaskan wilderness?
It's romantic, IMHO. I like the idea of man vs. wild. Since I was 12, I always wanted to see what I was made of in a survival situation. I now realize that I'd probably suck a bit at it - but still admire the romanticism of it all. Chris McCandless was a hero. Even if he was also a dumbass.
Isn't this the ultimate sign of growing older? Wishing that you did X, not doing X when you had the option, and then wanting to make X an obligation for those younger than you. A sort of vicarious living. I have seen it recently in the UK with post-National Service people suggesting the return of National Service - for people younger than them, naturally...
Maybe, but I'm only 28 - perhaps too old to gain many of the benefits of the Hock, but not too old to successfully complete the Hock.
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If your second block is serious - isn't this a strong case for 'safetyism'? Unless the survival rate is very high (which it would be IMO, there'd just be an industry that preps kids for success), your society would just be randomly killing a lot of its best and most courageous people for ... not that much gain. Willingness to die isn't going to select for 'bravery, nobility, and character' in the way you want it to, imo - archetypes like the corporate ladder climber snake or the dumb and brash young man will be very motivated to do this.
Early Hocks would probably look a lot like the early UFC. I'm no martial arts fan or anything like that, but as I understand it there were all kinds of guys fighting each other in the early days. There were boxers fighting wrestlers, karate guys fighting sumo dudes, and no weight classes. Now that guys have been beating on each other in the UFC ring for long enough, we've mostly figured out what strategies work (and which are shit). So now, MMA looks to be mostly pretty standardized. Twenty years after the first Hock, you'd just have people Hockmaxxing by following a fairly standard Hock prep course, just like (overly simplified) MMA guys get good at fighting MMA by doing most of the same shit - training boxing, BJJ and cardio. Not practicing karate or sumo or some shit like that.
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