[alistairSH]

Applicants to top universities are already doing (a) through (d), so removing the SAT should help - it's one less thing to worry about. If the AP/IB exams are just as good a proxy for "college aptitude", we should just us those, right?

[rychco]

While I agree in theory that AP/IB exams could be used instead of SAT/ACT, they are unfortunately not available at all schools. Students nowadays are already occasionally forced to travel to different schools in their area in order to take as many AP/IB classes as possible.

Additionally, removing any of the objective requirements forces students to add even more activities to their existing laundry list of extracurriculars in order to stand out. I don't have any evidence, but I fear that students will have to work even harder & spend even more hours outside the classroom just to stand out without SAT/ACT scores. Students are massively overworked as it is.

[alistairSH]

It seems the students (parents?) who are inclined to spend every waking moment doing "college prep" of some sort are already doing so.

Personally, I hate the whole test industry - it incentivizes poor behavior (ie the existence of the entire test prep industry). But, I don't have a better answer. I wish colleges could rely on GPA, course selection, and extracurriculars, but apparently that doesn't work either.

At a macro level, I'm not even sure it matters much. The students who are marginal for acceptance to MIT or other top-tier universities are already going to be successful wherever they land. The real stand-outs are going to get in regardless - they're just that good. And everybody else will do just fine at the best state u. (or whatever other selective but not "ivy tier" college) in their region.

Anecdotally, my friends kids are getting into top universities without the insanity. A bunch to UVA, W&M, and VT (we live in VA), a few Ivies, a few to Stanford and Berkeley. The few kids I know doing test prep and other stuff like that are mostly getting into 2nd tier privates, which they likely would have gone to without the insanity.

[helen___keller]

> I don't have any evidence, but I fear that students will have to work even harder & spend even more hours outside the classroom just to stand out without SAT/ACT scores. Students are massively overworked as it is.

This is basically a tautology ;) it doesn't matter how the targets change, as selectivity increases students (and their parents, for the well-to-do) will work harder and harder to pass whatever filters exist.