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Earlier this month, Palantir launched a new internship for graduating high school students — a direct challenge to what it called “the shortcomings of university admissions.”

Dubbed the “Meritocracy Fellowship,” the four-month program is meant to compete with higher ed for top talent. Applicants need a 33+ ACT score, and selections will be made “based solely on merit and academic excellence,” according to the company. Some will ultimately get full-time offers.

“Absent meritocracy, campuses have become breeding grounds for extremism and chaos,” Palantir said in the job posting.

It’s true that elite colleges are harder than ever to get into, based on a confusing array of subjective criteria. We’re all familiar with the stories. Zach Yadegari, a high school student from Rosslyn, New York, went viral this month after being rejected from all of his top choices — despite starting a $30 million-a-year business and scoring a 34 on the ACT. Kids work their whole lives to get funneled into a handful of elite schools that are supposed to offer an experience that’s unequivocally worth it. But in Palantir’s view, universities aren’t holding up their end of the deal, Marge York, Palantir’s head of talent, told me in an interview (read the edited and condensed Q&A here).

The Meritocracy Fellowship, in some ways, has its roots in October 7, 2023. In the aftermath of Hamas attacks, the company set up an internship dubbed the “Safe Haven” program for students looking to escape antisemitism on college campuses. Palantir got hundreds of applications overnight. And among the cohort it hired, the new interns’ stories seemed to expose a deeper dysfunction in higher ed...

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