As a college admissions or business selection committee member, you have the opportunity to help make an impact on the future of an organization. But with such an important decision, it is critical to ensure that the selection process is free of bias and unbiased opinions. A good way to achieve this goal is to establish a clear set of guidelines for the committee. Having guidelines in place will help to keep everyone on the same page and ensure that all criteria are considered.
Generally, committee members should be selected to represent diverse perspectives. This can be accomplished by involving people from different departments, gender, age and even functional expertise. Using a variety of viewpoints will reduce the risk of an individual being overly influenced by the work of others on the committee.
The NCAA Selection Committee takes a lot of factors into account when determining its field of 68 teams to compete in the tournament. Some of the most important include RPI (ratings percentage index), win-loss record, home-field advantage, strength of schedule and head-to-head records. But there are many other factors that the committee considers, including key player injuries, imbalanced conference schedules and more.
While these statistics and data points are important, the selection committee also relies on its own evaluations from watching games throughout the season and comparing team records against other schools. This, in addition to the “Eye Test” – which refers to the impressions and observations that a committee member gets from interviewing candidates – can help determine the final rankings of the committee members.
The Selection Committee also uses a series of specialized groups to help sort through applicants. These groups might be geographic regions, varsity athletes or students of color. This process helps to minimize the amount of time a single committee member devotes to a candidate and gives the entire group an equal opportunity to evaluate each applicant.
One important thing to note is that a committee should never share the individual rankings of any of its members with each other. This prevents committee members from “social loafing” and following the voting of others on the committee. It is also important to use a random order of evaluation and discussion for each application, so that no one committee member has undue influence over the decisions of the rest of the group.
Finally, the selection committee should attempt to avoid rematches between same-conference teams in the first round of the tournament. This can be difficult to do, but a committee that wants to keep its integrity should do so as much as possible. And, of course, a retired bookmaker would be helpful in setting the lines for the tournament and could be used to evaluate how well teams are currently performing for matchup purposes.