[evgen]

The grades need to havebsome basic normalization because college admittance personell probably do not have the time to review several thousand projects during college application season to determine whether or not they actually demonstrate competence in the skills involved or if they were actually demonstrating the skills of the student and not the "projects that will get you into harvard" crib sheet the student was using. Grades and test scores have various drawbacks, but they are a relatively inexpensive normalization and filting mechanism compared to something like this; at the upper end of the spectrum you are doing projects in addition to grades/tests but the latter filters the project work that has to be considered to a manageable amount.

[robryan]

So maybe they should make the time, I don't see how an education system that pushes students in undesirable directions to make things easier on administration is a good one.