Maastricht University requires most business and economics students to spend one of their six semesters at another university. Students choose from more than 100 schools covering six continents (no exchanges with Antarctica!). The number of slots available varies across schools; unsurprisingly, some schools are over- and others under-subscribed.
How to solve these problems of shortage and surplus? Simple: the University rations by student GPA, with positions in the queue for each university allocated on the basis of GPA. This year, the greatest excess demand was for Sciences Po in Paris-the three slots were filled by students in the top 20% of their class. Other cases of excess demand this year were Simon Fraser University in British Columbia (post-Olympic publicity?) and, as in every year, the University of California campuses. Is rationing by GPA sensible? To me, it seems both fair and incentive-compatible; it gives students an incentive to perform well here, and the more desirable campuses get the better students. But is there a fairer and more efficient system?
and 
. You can also watch it on 
Do you think GPA fairly represents all of a students talents?
If so then yes basing it on GPA is fair. If not then no.
GPA measures ability to perform in school not in life or work. The two don’t necessarily correlate. Limiting exposure due to the one limits the other.
In college, I had a choice between getting a great GPA by devoting all my time to studying or getting an acceptable GPA by devoting less time to studying but more time to student activities that were relevant to my major, such as working for the school newspaper.
I certainly don’t regret that I chose the latter. Those student activities opened up more job possibilities for me than a half-a-point higher GPA would have.
Granted, if an amazing study-abroad experience hinged on my GPA, that might have factored into my choice … but would it really have been in my long-term self interest?
You’d have to take into consideration GPA inflation. Some universities (and even departments within universities) inflate grades, giving an unfair advantage to those students who go to those universities.
I’m so tired of people who “could have done better on the SATs,” “could have gotten better grades,” “could have founded Google,” etc., but “chose” not to…
The real news here is that these Dutch students are required to study elsewhere for a semester, and that most apparently choose to study abroad. Sadly, only a small percentage of American college and university students study abroad. According to the latest statistics published by the Institute of International Education (IIE), a total of 262,416 U.S. students studied abroad in the 2007-2008 academic year. (See link: http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/page/150832.) While this represents an increase over previous years, it’s still a small percentage of all U.S. students.
@physyko.net: Depends on the field. In more technical and academic fields, GPA is typically a pretty good measure of ability in your future job. A lot of important skills are built into GPA as well, like organization and ability to hit deadlines.
But how do you objectively compare an art student to a computer programming student? What if the school they are requesting to go to has a world famous art program?
Ultimately I think the best method would be for students should pick there first couple of choices and also list a reason for each school next to it and review the selections by I hand.
But if you don’t want to go through the effort of manual evaluations? You could do a lot worse than the proposed GPA system. I can’t really think of any better perfectly objective method. Plus, as noted, it could lead to students trying harder in lower years if there is a specific school they are trying to go to.
What about offering a GPA boost for students who choose to attend the underserved universities. So if you select one of the underserved universities you get a .5 point GPA boost to all courses you take during the semester you are there. “Better” students who are more focused on GPA may choose to get the bonus and thus go to schools who would not otherwise get those types of students. Students who are not excelling as much GPA wise may then get exposure to “better” schools they would not otherwise experience