But who decides what merit is, and who deserves it?
And certain kinds of merit can come primarily/only from high caste individuals. How do you choose merit that isn't coloured in race or otherwise?
And certain kinds of merit can come primarily/only from high caste individuals. How do you choose merit that isn't coloured in race or otherwise?
Academic merit, evaluated by testing.
Which has a storied history, being the primary means of governance of China for millennia.
But to call it meritocracy, we must do two things: elide the correlation between tested excellence and academic performance, which correlation is strong but not perfect, and then conflate academic merit with meritoriousness generally, which I firmly reject.
Call it what it is: testocracy. A quick search shows that the word is not unknown. I'd accept a better one, so long as it doesn't involve pretending that grinding ones life away for a chance at the top is equal to merit.
But college is not merely an academic pursuit. I would argue it isn't even centrally an academic pursuit. Instead, it is a gatekeeper to the higher echelons of society. The -cracy refers to ruling, let us keep in mind.
You propose rule by those who are best at standardized testing, and wish to pass that off as some sort of merit. Basta.
I reject any sort of one-size-fits-all criterion for admission. If a college wishes to be testocratic, as CalTech is, so be it. If they wish to strongly favor black people, as the historically black colleges do, fine. This sort of localism is more robust and flexible, and I think this leads to better outcomes.