Academic Suggests Letting Grades Break SAE Ties: “Problem Solved”

Gabriel Gutiérrez, an academic at the Catholic University’s Faculty of Education, says the government is taking “a long road” to address a problem in Chile’s School Admissions System, known as SAE, that could be solved more simply.

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a long road

Gutiérrez co-authored research concluding that if the executive’s still-unspecific proposal continues with a logic of prioritizing academic performance, it could increase school segregation. He noted that segregation in Chile has been declining, calling that trend unusual in the international context.

He said the research does not argue that the SAE must remain exactly as it is. One objection to the system is that when students share the same priority level, it uses a random draw to decide which applicants receive places. Gutiérrez argues that academic performance should determine the tie instead.

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Let’s reward the student with the better performance.

“I understand that the government’s initiative has a reason for saying, ‘Let’s reward the student with the better performance,’” he said. But he criticized the broader approach as an attempt to dismantle the existing system when a narrower change could have achieved the same goal. The government could simply have said that the place goes to the applicant with the stronger academic position or higher class ranking, he argued. “Then you remove the random factor when selecting places at a school, and instead of drawing what people see as a lottery, you say, ‘Let the student with the better grade get the place,’ and the whole problem is solved.”

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Then you remove the random factor when selecting places at a school, and instead of drawing what people see as a lottery, you say, ‘Let the student with the better grade get the place,’ and the whole problem is solved.