If you and I were creating a system that automatically selects applicants without human eyes, then we would need, at the very least and as a starting criteria, selection on the basis of stats. That's really the nature of the beast for medical school, right? If you can't "prove" yourself in undergrad and obtain at least a certain GPA and certain MCAT, due to risk, we wouldn't be able to admit said applicant. (Though, ideally, we'd be able to account for difficulty of the degree obtained—I'll accept an engineer with a 3.5 over an underwater basket-weaving major with a 4.0; though, of course, we'd have to account for the BW major who obtained a 510+ on their MCAT as well, because, of course, it's the great equalizer.) After that, we'd need to select for EC's. We'd need a program which analyzes hours and type of activity, and match that to our medical school's mission. We'd need to select for writing proficiency as well, and this might need human eyes—but I'm pretty sure a program could do this as well. Then, we fire up the program, it analyzes applicants according to our pre-set criteria—of which are clearly delineated on our website—and the II roll out.
I agree that you're definitely doing something wrong if you've got the achievements outlined above and not many interviews! Though I think it's fair to say that such applicants with those achievements which do not obtain many interviews are few and far in between, though I could be wrong.
Yeah, without putting too much thought into it, I think I'd extend the logic to virtually all careers. With the congressman example: so—correct me if I'm wrong—you're saying that this elected official is not entitled to (i.e., does not contain the privilege for) said office in virtue of their merits? Hmm...then how else would we deem them fit to serve? Lol, god knows what happens when we elect random individuals of which exhibit no merit whatsoever that would entitle them to hold office. What do you mean when you say that a congress(wo)man is privileged to hold office?
(Warning, opinion follows) I think we ought to seriously consider someone's merit in the case of holding governmental offices. I believe that when we allow anyone with any set of perspectives and merits to hold office, society goes astray. Such a political opinion is hard to stomach, because it does run against a widely held western paradigm of "anyone can hold office" and "we have the right to vote for anyone"—but, IMO, in an ideal world, our government would be run efficiently and for the betterment of the society that it serves. In such a nation, we couldn't allow just anyone to hold office.
