At a certain establishment, I succeeded in forcing through mandatory interviews for students doing the combined flying degree
At another establishment they started interviews. And found that they had a greater uptake in offers.
The level of average quals also went up.
Seemed to work that the students belived that the more hoops you had to jump through the better the Uni and the course. Maybe an exam would have a similar effect.
The academics all saw it as a baw ache, because realistically nobody ever failed the interview. Although in one or 2 cases someone that had maybe a point or 2 low on the quals side of things got a look in where as they would not have before. Although it did stop one really weird bloke starting.
Also as well they started doing a day of team building exercises. Which apart from an oppertunity for the younger RA's to perv at the fresher girlies seemed to sort out alot of the intial reluctance in labs to work together.