Six doors that look the same

A student in Banha is applying for postgraduate places this winter. She sends six applications, and all six look alike: the same subject, the same kind of large university, the same city, the same deadline. Each is what a sensible applicant is supposed to want.

It feels like six chances. It is closer to one chance, entered six times. If the thing that counts against her in one of them is her grades, or her age, or the year everyone suddenly wanted that subject, it counts against her in all six together.

The trouble starts with the word sensible. She is aiming at a picture of the ideal applicant and the ideal place, somewhere in the middle of everything, and trying again and again to hit it exactly. But that middle is a guess. Nobody admitting students is standing in it, and nobody she will become is standing in it either.

A real spread looks less tidy. One application in her subject at a big university, yes. One at a small institute that takes few people and looks hard at each. One abroad. One in a neighbouring field she has never quite admitted she likes. One paid traineeship that is not a degree at all. Any one of them alone looks like an odd choice. Together they mean she is likely to be wanted by someone.

This is how to choose under uncertainty, whether it is a career, a range of products or a set of first customers. Clustering around the centre feels careful, but only if you already know where the centre is.

When we do not, the edges are where the odds are.