[nicholas73]

I had middling grades and not much extracurricular padding in high school but 99th percentile SAT (no prep other than a practice test). If it weren't for the SAT I would have had worse college options. School felt like it provided nothing more than read and regurg and my background did not promote anything extra. So personally I do not see how this decision evens the playing field.

[paxys]

There are a lot more cases which are the exact opposite. People who have done well in school, extra curriculars and more, but are held back by a meaningless test.

[Gwypaas]

I guess it comes back to if you do a cumulative weighting or have different buckets, especially regarding soft things like extra curricular activities.

Where I went to uni we simply have two different buckets which the schools can change around a bit, but still keeping both. For for my program 66% of students were selected by grade and 34% based on a national test with normalized scoring.

Extra curricular activities or whatever isn't really a thing ever, because it can't be measured. Well, until you are padding your resume for that first job.

[nicholas73]

I don't have perspective, maybe, but what is exactly holding back someone who does well in school to score higher on a test? It's not like you don't get to retake it if it was a fluke.

If it's the test fee, just allow a retake for free like a gas station smog check offer.

Or, a college can bucket grades and test scores separately and just take whichever is higher.

[kortilla]

Extra curriculars don’t mean shit realistically when it comes to predicting performance in college classes.