College admissions meets ‘Survivor’ with creepy new appraisal

College admissions offices are asking applicants to jump through a new hoop — a cross between “Survivor” and “The Hunger Games” that seems designed to thwart the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action in education.

High schoolers applying to top schools like Columbia and Vanderbilt are being asked to take part in “dialogues” via Zoom to compete against other students on their levels of compassion, empathy and “open-mindedness.”

Participants rank each other after “exchanging views” on trending topics like immigration and climate change, and the recorded session is uploaded as part of the admissions package.

Imagine your collegiate fate being determined by fellow applicants who don’t have your best interests at heart but their own, bringing their own biases and agendas to the table.

Other high-school seniors you’ve never met will judge you not on how well you debate them on controversial ideas, but on your demeanor, your decorum and the views you espouse.

Would anyone on a call like that be willing to risk a coveted spot in the freshman class by engaging in a spirited, genuine exchange — or by speaking their own mind, if their views go against the grain?

Fat chance: More likely, kids will go along to get along, saying whatever they think will make them look better to the others on the call and in the eyes of admissions officers.

It almost guarantees progressive groupthink, on everything from critical race theory to Gaza, in the applicant pool.

By pitting applicants against each other and allowing them to vote others “off the island” via rankings on empathy, curiosity or kindness, markers of merit and academic ability that were once the gold standard of college admissions will fade even further.

The “dialogues” are moderated by Schoolhouse.world, a platform launched by Khan Academy founder Sal Khan, who pitches the Zoom calls as a way for admissions officers to gauge which applicants can earn the respect of their peers.

In reality, they’ll showcase applicants’ ability to choose allies and indulge in ideological shaming.

And by viewing applicants’ skin tones and hearing their voices, admissions officers will glean information they are no longer legally permitted to request.

Universities will be able to select students based on diversity, equity and inclusion principles — without anyone being the wiser. 

Colleges want what the Supreme Court has told them they cannot have: an artificially, intentionally engineered racially diverse student body.

And they’ll do whatever they have to do to get it.

After the court said “no” to affirmative action in the landmark 2023 decision Students for Fair Admissions vs. Harvard, that Ivy and other colleges said, “OK, fine” — and started figuring out new ways to tell which applicant is “diverse” and which isn’t.

Some implemented identity-based personal essays as part of the admissions process, asking students to discuss a situation in which they had to overcome adversity.

“Adversity,” of course, was just code for “tell us how white people have discriminated against you because of your racial status.”

Other schools have followed suit, with some going as far as requiring photos to accompany the admissions package.

It seems nothing will convince these schools that admitting students based on race is inherently wrong.

Instead, they continue to weaken the value of their own degrees by changing the standards and expectations for obtaining one.

The college-admissions industry will start training kids on how to game these group interviews — and these videos will become part of kids’ “permanent records.”

Who knows how they’ll be used to cancel them for wrongthink in years to come. 

It’s been years since colleges aimed to admit students based on their academic merit.

Students with means no longer need to hire tutors, learn how to score high marks on admissions tests or even pay someone to write their personal essays to convince schools they’re capable of making the grade.

Now, all they have to do is practice how to game a Zoom call, how to say the expected, socially approved leftist line and how to make other kids on the call look inferior. 

It’s a way to implement a progressive purity test that’s more insidious than affirmative action ever was.

If it all seems a little barbaric, you’re right — it is.

Colleges should admit students with academic promise, not those best able to figure out how to manipulate compassion tests.

Libby Emmons is the editor-in-chief at the Post Millennial.