[rkique]

The college admissions process is actually moving away from weighing the SAT or ACT as heavily as it has in the past -- for this year's admissions cycle, most schools are going test-optional. The best correlation for American standardized testing scores isn't study habits, but zip code.

I personally don't believe that moving to a system like China's gaokao would solve any of the issues to do with wealth, because the American university system is more than an academic system. It can't simply test for academics (although GPA is the #1 factor considered in admissions across the board), because the strength of American universities is also in community and intellectual diversity. Most applicants to top schools are academically qualified to attend.